As illustrating wisdom justified of all her children, as well as the superiority of the new system of grace, the kingdom of God as it was about to come in, the Spirit leads Luke to give the story of the woman who followed Jesus into the house of the Pharisee (it would seem in His train). All was arranged to bring out the truth and the grace of God with great precision. “One of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him.” The Lord goes into the house and takes His place at table. A woman in the city, a sinner, evidently of notorious character, “when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and to wipe them with the hairs of her bead, and kissed his feet and anointed them, with the ointment.”
Faith makes a soul very bold; at the same time it gives great propriety. But its boldness is inspired by the attractive power of the object looked to. It is from no qualities of our own. What for instance could be more beautifully in season? What more modest and right in feeling and act than the conduct of this hitherto abandoned woman? Now, at least, so much the more glory to the object of her faith who brought about this immense change. When she knew that Jesus was invited there, she goes too. It was the last place where she would otherwise have ventured. It was Jesus without invitation that emboldened her to go there. But when she found herself there, she does not ask Peter or James or John or any of them, as the Greeks asked Philip, to see Jesus. She goes at once: not merely her own deep sense of need, but her sense of His ineffable grace—the grace of Jesus—gave the entree at once and introduced her without further form or ceremony. Completely absorbed in an object, which she may not have defined to her mind to be a divine person, but which proved itself to be none the less divine by its all-overcoming power over her soul, she must have instinctively shrunk from the Pharisee's house under any other circumstances. Ordinarily there was everything to repel, nothing to attract her, in that house. Yet she makes no apology for the intrusion; she knew without being told that Jesus made her free to draw near; and there she is found, standing at His feet behind Him, weeping.
Remark too, how every way, every act, every feature of the case was perfectly suited to express without a word the real truth of her past as well as present, and of His goodness. She began to wash His feet with tears and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet and anointed them with the ointment. Mary did it another day—did that which was so similar, that some have even fancied this to be Mary. But that is a profound mistake. We hear nothing at all of her tears. We do hear of her anointing the feet of Jesus as well as His head and wiping them with the hair; so that the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. In both it was an act of devotedness to Jesus; and devotedness does not imitate, but like devotedness to the same object produces similar effects, though each with its own peculiarity. But besides devotedness, there was in this woman confession of her own self-abasement, of her horror at her sins, of her repentance towards God, and her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That was not the question with Mary. Mary was filled with a sense of the danger that impended over Jesus. She had a vague but true consciousness of His approaching death, so that the Lord counted it an anointing for His burial, gave it divine value, expressed what her heart had not uttered even to Himself; but nevertheless what she could not but feel, though she could not articulate it. But in this woman's case it was the unaffected pouring out of a burdened heart, which felt its only relief in thus “washing his feet with tears and wiping them with the hairs of her head.” Thus, sense of grace produces effects very similar to a deep sense of His glory. They are both divine, both of the Spirit of God. Sense of His grace, shaded by the sense of her own sinfulness, was the predominant feeling in this poor woman's mind; as sense of His glory, shaded by the feeling of approaching danger, was of Mary's.
All this was lost upon the Pharisee, or rather it stirred up the unbelief of his heart. “When the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him, for she is a sinner.” His thought was that the being a sinner would unfit for Jesus. Yet he had no adequate notion of the glory of Jesus, nor of His holiness, nor of course of His grace: he would not even allow Him to be a prophet. Had He been so, as he thought He must have seen through the woman that touched Him. Simon knew that the woman was a sinner. It was known commonly in the place. If Jesus had only known her character, it was inconceivable to Simon that He would have allowed her to take such a liberty with His person. But Jesus thoroughly knew her as well as Simon; and if she was a sinner, He was a Savior. Alas! the Pharisee neither felt the sin nor saw the Savior according to God. Phariseeism is an attempt to take a middle ground between a sinner and a Savior, and this ignores both the misery of the one and the grace of the other. All worldly religion avoids a real deep confession, as of sin, so of a Savior. It contents itself with generalities and forms. They own sins, and they own a Savior after a sort: but the golden mean, which in the world's things is so valuable, is fatal in what is divine. This is what Christianity was intended to bring people out of. It is what the faith of God's good news disproves and banishes: for the gospel of salvation goes expressly on the ground of total ruin through sin. Now man, religious man, dislikes all extremes, likes moderate views; but by this moderation of view, the depths of sin are unfelt and the Savior is un-honored. The Pharisee shows it out in contrast with the woman. He was not a child of wisdom: “wisdom is justified of all her children.” He found ignorance, where she found perfect grace; and she was wise. She was a child of wisdom. Wisdom was not justified by him. It was unseen and denied. “This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him, for she is a sinner.” He did not know: such was the Pharisee's account of Jesus.
But Jesus answered what he did not utter “Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee; and he saith, Master, say on.” And the Lord then tells him the parable of the creditor. “There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty” —one a comparatively large, and the other a small sum; but neither could pay, and he “frankly forgave them both.” Who would love him most? The Pharisee would answer on human ground with correctness, “I suppose that he to whom he forgave most.” The Lord owned that he had rightly judged, and then He at once applies it, “Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house; thou gavest me no water for my feet.”
After all, the entertainment that even a Pharisee—a religious man—provides for Jesus, is very short. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks: the poor reception betrayed how little his heart was in receiving Jesus. Yet he thought to patronize Jesus. This is what natural religion always does. He thought be was doing honor to Him, but instead of that he was nourishing himself, and proved the low conception he had of Jesus by the measured scale of that which he provided for Jesus. “I entered into thine house; thou gavest me no water for my feet” —that was an ordinary thing in these countries; “but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss” —in these lands no strange reception— “but this woman, since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet; my head with oil thou didst not anoint” —but here again how entirely she went beyond— “but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment.” Not even a king was so entertained. “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."'
It was evidently not the woman's first sense of the grace of Christ. What she had done was because with her heart she did believe in Him. She believed before she came. It was her faith brought her, but she did not know that her faith saved her. She loved before she came, and all that she did was the fruit of her love; yet not her love, but her faith saved her. She loved much, because she was forgiven much; and she felt it. Thus she was led to this love by the deep sense of her sin, and of the attractive grace of the Savior; and so she must hear how truly she was forgiven. The Lord says to her, “Thy sins are forgiven.” This drew out the inward question of those around, and not Simon's only. “They began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also?”
Here, again, also it was not the first time. The Lord had said publicly to the palsied man, “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” But there was a difference, and a weighty one, between that forgiveness and this. There it was within the bounds of Israel, and it was specially in reference to this world. I do not mean to say that the man may not have been forgiven eternally; but that it was emphatically the forgiveness of sins proved by the healing of his body, and both in connection with the earth. Thus it was what may be and has been called governmental forgiveness, and after this sort I suppose it will be that God will act in the millennium. It might or might not be eternal. The millennial reign of Christ will be accompanied by the banishing of diseases and the forgiveness of sins. There will be nothing but blessing everywhere. But whether it be eternal or not will depend no doubt on the reality of the work of God in the soul (i.e., on faith).
In the case before us the forgiveness has nothing to do with the present life. It is absolute, unconditional, and eternal; and assuredly this will be found by and by in the kingdom of God, as it is now brought out in the power of the Holy Ghost. It was what ought to be in Christianity—a kind of little anticipation or example of what was to be proclaimed in the gospel; and it is peculiar to Luke. He said to the woman in answer to these doubts, “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace” —words nowhere said to the palsied man. It was not her love that saved her, but her faith. Love is the exercise of that which is within us—of that new nature which the Holy Ghost imparts, and of which He is Himself the strength. But faith, although of the Spirit of God, nevertheless finds all in its object, in another. Love is more what people call a subjective thing; whereas the essence of faith is that though in man, it is nevertheless exercised on what is outside him. The whole of that which it depends on is in its object—even Christ. “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.” Thus there is present salvation; and this in such power that the Lord can bid her “go in peace.” This is precisely what the gospel now announces freely, and unfolds fully, according to the value of an inestimable, exhaustless Christ and His work.