Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Luke 7:41
There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty.
41. a certain creditor ] Rather, money-lender.
five hundred pence ] A denarius was the day’s wages of a labourer and is usually reckoned at 7d., but really represents much more. Hence 500 denarii would certainly represent as much as 50 in these days. The frequency of our Lord’s illustrations from debtors and creditors shews the disturbed and unprosperous condition of the country under Roman and Herodian oppression.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
A certain creditor – A man who had lent money or sold property, the payment for which was yet due.
Five hundred pence – About 69 dollars 26 cents, or 14 British pounds, 11 shilling, 8d. See the notes at Mat 18:28.
Fifty – About 7 dollars, or 1 British pound, 9 shillings, and 2d.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Luk 7:41
There was a certain creditor which had two debtors
God is our Creditor
God is this Creditor; He trusts us with His goods; what we have we have from Him to use.
1. How many daily spend of Gods stock and store. Neither man nor beast (for the use of man), but daily receive from His hand, and seek to be further trusted (Psa 104:27). It would undo the richest man that ever was to have so many in his debt at once.
2. Think how prodigal and expensive men are in spending on Gods stock; how prodigal of His mercy, patience, goodness, &c. (Rom 2:4-5). How lavish are men of the time lent, of health, wealth, &c. (Luk 15:1-32.). Look but on the life of some one sinner, and judge of the rest (Ho Jer 20:7).
3. Consider we with ourselves how long God hath forborne and been out of purse.
4. Add to all Gods bounty and liberality–which is renewed to us daily–He is as willing still to lend us, as if we had paid Him in all, and owedHim not a groat.
5. In all our wants and needs, from hence we have direction to whom to go a-borrowing.
(1) He is a bountiful Creditor, and no needy one; better provided than any other. He hath for our need, and always is at home.
(2) He stands not upon any great security; He is willing to take our words, our promises, for the payment (Gen 28:20; 1Sa 1:11; Mat 18:26-27). Only He expects that we should be just of our words, that we may be again trusted (Ecc 5:4),
(3) Though we borrow of him to-day, yet if we stand in need of Him tomorrow, as questionless we shall, and desire to be further trusted, He will be willing to pleasure us, especially when He sees we employ those talents well wherewith He hath betrusted us. (N. Rogers.)
Other debts
1. A day is set for the payment of other debts. Till the day be come we fear no arrest, they cannot be exacted. But the sinner goes in danger every hour; God may arrest him whensoever it pleaseth Him, as He often doth and hath done, when men think themselves most safe (1Sa 15:32; Dan 5:4-30; Job 21:13).
2. Other debts make us liable but to a bodily arrest only. The conscience may be free; but the debt of sin doth endanger both body and soul too.
3. Other debts may be forgotten, and so not required; but the debt of sin cannot be forgotten of the Lord (Amo 8:7). He keepeth a debt-book, wherein all is written, with the day and place, &c. (Isa 65:6). Cainsdebt is as fresh in Gods mind as if it were but yesterday.
4. From ether debtors there may be some protection, either place or person may keep us from arrest; but there is no protection against the Lords attachments. Angels nor men cannot save us (Job 10:7). The horns of the altar cannot protect us (1Ki 2:28-31). Nor can mountains and rocks conceal us (Rev 6:16).
5. There may be a flying away from other debtors, and a hiding ourselves from mans attachments; but flying here will not save us (Psa 139:7).
6. In mans prison some favour may be showed, good usage obtained; but in the prison wherein sin doth cast us, there is no ease.
7. If thou art not freed out of the hands of other creditors, by friends or other means, yet death will free thee. But it is not so here, the debt which sin cast thee into is most called for, and most terrible after death. (N. Rogers.)
Condition of these two debtors
All are not alike indebted to the Lord. Some are more indebted to Him than others. This appeals by that parable Luk 16:5); and by other express scripture (Mat 11:21; Mat 12:31; Mat 23:14-15; Mat 23:24).
1. All have not received from the Lord a like number of pounds nor talents. He hath not given to all a like stock to trade with (Luk 19:14; Mat 25:14).
2. Again, all are not alike deep in respect of actual transgressions. For albeit original sin be equally and alike extended unto all, it hath no degree nor parts in any child of Adam more than other: yet actual sins committed by us are of a thousand kinds, and every vice hath its latitude and degree. Some are bound up in folio, other some in quarto, others in octavo, and the sins of some other in a decimo sexto.
3. We have learned better, and accordingly we should examine of what kind our sins are, and how much our debt is; and as we find, let us put down in our account. To help us a little in this our search, take this for a general rule, the more directly any sin is done against God, the greater the sin is to be accounted of, and the more the debt. Thus the sin against the Holy Ghost is the greatest sin, because he who committeth that sin, sinneth of malice, purposely to despite the Spirit of grace. Hence it follows–
(1) The sins of the highest degree against the first table are greater than the sins of the highest degree against the second table.
(2) Those sins that are committed against the means which should keep us from sin are greater than other (Mat 11:24). So sins against knowledge are greater than those that are committed out of simple ignorance (Luk 12:47; Jam 4:17). And as it is thus in the sins ofomission, so also in the sins of commission (Act 3:17; 1Ti 1:13). Paul found mercy, because he did it ignorantly. So sins against the gospel are greater than those against the law, for that they are committed against more light. This is the condemnation, saith Christ, that light is come into the world (Joh 3:19). To commit sin in the clear light of the gospel is a reproach not much unlike that of Absolom. He committed wickedness in the sight of the sun
(3) Sins often committed are greater than those but once committed by us, for that here is an abusing of God s patience and forbearance (Rom 2:4-5; Jer 5:6; 2Pe 2:22). In arithmetic a figure, in the first place, stands for itself; in the second place, it stands for ten; and, in the third place, for a hundred, and so higher. (N. Rogers.)
No peace to the debtor
Augustus hearing that the goods of a merchant who died much in debt were set forth to sale, he sent to buy his pillow, saying that he thought it had some rare virtue in it to get one asleep, seeing he that owed so much could sleep on it so quietly. As for these who are so deep in arrearages with God, and in such danger by reason of their debt, and yet sleep securely, God keep me from their bed and pillow. That sleep of theirs is but Porkepose playing before a tempest. (N. Rogers.)
Small debts
1. That the nature of sin stands not in the material part, but in the form, which is the transgression of the law.
2. Small sins, with their multitude and number, hurt the soul as much as great sins do with their weight.
3. Small sins serve to make way for greater. Huntsmen first ply the deer with their little beagles, till it be heated and blown, and then they put on their great buckhounds. Such use the devil makes of little sins. A long thread of iniquity he hath let in with a small needle, as we find in Davids case, and in Peters, &c. A great fire hath been kindled by a little spark; and a great blot made with a little hair hanging in the pen.
4. Small sins are cured with more difficulty than greater. A wound made with a stiletto is more dangerous than a wound made with Goliaths sword; here the wound presently closeth up, and so bleeds inwardly in greater abundance.
5. Forget not what Christ suffered for small sins, even His precious blood Heb 9:7). Our great sins were as the spear in His side, and as the nails in His blessed hands and feet; and our small sins were as the thorns upon His head, they, though small, yet put Him to pain and grief. How dare we crown the Son of God (again) with thorns, and put Him by our small sins to an after suffering? (N. Rogers.)
Free forgiveness
I. IT IS AN UNSPEAKABLE MERCY TO HAVE OUR SINS FORGIVEN. This is the first desire and prayer of an awakened sinner, and a principal blessing in the covenant of grace.
II. IT IS THE SOLE PREROGATIVE OF GOD TO FORGIVE SIN. None can pass by an offence but the party offended, and none can discharge a debt but the person with whom it was contracted.
III. THOSE TO WHOM GOD FORGIVES SIN HAVE NOTHING TO PAY. The whole creation is become insolvent.
IV. THOSE WHOSE SINS ARE PARDONED ARE FIRST BROUGHT TO SEE THAT THEY HAVE NOTHING TO PAY.
V. THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS IS ALL OF GRACE.
VI. THE FORGIVENESS OF SIN TENDS TO GLORIFY GOD. Hence we may learn–
1. How much those wrong God who entertain hard thoughts of Him.
2. What gratitude and love is due to Him from those whose sins are pardoned! (B. Beddome, M. A.)
From the whole, we may observe these six things.
1. That sinners are in debt to God, as having violated His law, and so laid themselves open to the punishment threatened: The wages of sin is death.
2. Some have contracted greater guilt, and so are more in debt to God than others, as having laid themselves open to greater punishment; from the greater advantages they have enjoyed and abused, they have more to answer for and more to fear.
3. It is the common condition of sinners indebted to God that they have nothing to pay, nothing to satisfy Divine justice, or redeem themselves from deserved wrath.
4. God is able and ready to forgive the greatest debt and debtors, as well as the least; those that owe five hundred pence, as well as those that owe fifty.
5. Whom God forgives, He forgives freely; not excluding the satisfaction of Christ, but upon the account of it, which is so far from lessening the freeness of that grace that forgives us, that it greatly exalts it.
I. SOME WHO HAVE RUN FAR IN DEBT TO GOD HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN. Manasseh in the Old Testament, and Paul and Mary Magdalene.
1. Thus He magnifies His patience, and proves it Divine, the patience of God, and not of a creature, much less of a man. (1Ti 1:16.)
2. Some whose iniquities have abounded have been forgiven, for the greater exaltation of grace. Grace is thus exalted and glorified–
(1) In its fulness; that so where sin hath abounded grace may much more abound.
(2) Herein grace shines in its freeness: which, that it may be regarded, it is Gods method, before He makes the offer of pardon, to sum up what sinners have been and done (Isa 43:22-24).
II. WHAT THERE IS IN FORGIVING GRACE TO BE AN ARGUMENT FOR LOVE IN THOSE THAT RECEIVE IT. If blessedness be an argument for love, forgiveness has this belonging to it, and connected with it (Psa 32:1-2). This is a comprehensive blessing, and the foundation of many others. They who have their sins forgiven, are freed from the greatest evil, the wrath of God, and eternal condemnation. Pardon of sin is a covenant-mercy, always connected with the favour of God, and a special relation to to Him. The pardon of sin will sweeten every other mercy, and render any outward burden or affliction tolerable. Sin imbitters, and adds a weight to any affliction; but pardon doth lighten and sweeten it. In a word, the sinner, pardoned in this world, shall have eternal life in the future.
III. How GODS GRACE, AS FREELY FORGIVING GREATER DEBTS, SHOULD LEAD THE FORGIVEN SOUL TO LOVE HIM THE MORE.
And here Gods rich grace, freely forgiving greater debts–
1. Tends to this, as it frees the soul from greater torment, to which its multiplied sins laid it open, especially those committed against light and grace.
2. Gods mercy, as forgiving greater debts, may free the soul from the more tormentful apprehensions it is under, even here, of the wrath to come, and so engage Him to love the more.
3. The greater and more astonishing grace abounding towards great sinners, and singling them out for mercy when others are left, is another ground of greater love.
Application:
1. Have such as have run deeply in debt to God been freely forgiven by Him? What reason have we, then, to believe Him when He declares Himself thus, As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live!
2. How unreasonable are the hard and horrid thoughts whereby sinners, awakened to a sense of their vileness and guilt, are kept off from a forgiving God?
3. How disingenuous would it be for any to go on with the greater security and boldness in sin, because God is ready so freely to forgive the greatest debt?
4. For the greatest sinners to say, There is no hope in their case, is to say what they have no warrant for, from God or His Word.
5. Let such as have any good hope that their debts, how large soever, are forgiven, love much, yea, love the more, the larger their debts have been. If we are pardoned at all, it is a very great debt from which we are discharged. O let us labour after suitable affection, and show it.
(1) By reflecting upon sin with the greater shame and sorrow, hatred and abhorrence, as committed against so good a God.
(2) Having much forgiven, love God the more, and give Him the glory due unto His name. Who is a God like unto Thee, who pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by transgression, &c.
(3) Having much forgiven, let your love show itself greater by your growing esteem of Jesus Christ, whose blood was the price of your pardon, and though it is given you freely, cost Him His life. (D. Wilcox.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 41. A certain creditor, c.] It is plain that in this parable our Lord means, by the creditor, GOD, and, by the two debtors, Simon and the woman who was present. Simon, who had the light of the law, and who, in consequence of his profession as a Pharisee, was obliged to abstain from outward iniquity, might be considered as the debtor who owed only fifty pence, or denarii. The woman, whom I have supposed to be a heathen, not having these advantages, having no rule to regulate her actions, and no curb on her evil propensities, may be considered as the debtor who owed five hundred pence, or denarii. And when both were compared, Simon’s debt to God might be considered, in reference to hers, as fifty to five hundred. However, we find, notwithstanding this great disparity, both were insolvent. Simon, the religious Pharisee, could no more pay his fifty to God than this poor heathen her five hundred and, if both be not freely forgiven by the Divine mercy, both must finally perish. Having NOTHING to PAY, he kindly FORGAVE them both. Some think that this very Simon was no inconsiderable debtor to our Lord, as having been mercifully cleansed from a leprosy; for he is supposed to be the same as Simon the leper. See Clarke on Mt 26:6.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
There was a certain creditor,…. All the Oriental versions premise something to this. The Syriac version reads, “Jesus said unto him”. The Arabic version, “then he said”. The Persic version, “Jesus said”; and the Ethiopic version, “and he said to him”; and something of this kind is understood, and to be supplied in the text:
which had two debtors, the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty; these were, as the word shows, Roman “denarii” or “pence”; the former of these sums, reckoning a Roman penny at seven pence halfpenny of our money, amounted to fifteen pounds and twelve shillings and six pence; and the latter, to one pound eleven shillings and three pence; the one of these sums was ten times larger, than the other. This is a parable: by “the creditor”, God is meant, to whom men owe their beings, and the preservation of them, and all the mercies of life; and are under obligation to obedience and thankfulness: hence: no man can merit any thing of God, or pay off any old debt, by a new act of obedience, since all is due to him: by the “two debtors” are meant, greater and lesser sinners: all sins are debts, and all sinners are debtors; not debtors to sin, for then it would not be criminal, but lawful to commit sin, and God must be pleased with it, which he is not, and men might promise themselves impunity, which they cannot; but they are debtors to fulfil the law, and in case of failure, are bound to the debt of punishment: and of these debtors and debts, some are greater, and others less; not but that they, are all equally sinners in Adam, and equally guilty and corrupted by his transgression; and the same seeds of sin are in the hearts of all men, and all sin is committed against God, and is a breach of his law, and is mortal, or deserving of death, even death eternal; but then as some commands are greater, and others less, so must their transgressions be: sin more immediately committed against God, is greater than that which is committed against our neighbour; and besides, the circumstances of persons and things differ, which more or less aggravate the offence.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
A certain lender ( ). A lender of money with interest. Here alone in the N.T. though a common word.
Debtors (). From (debt, obligation) and , to owe. Only here and 16:5 in the N.T., though common in late Greek writers.
Owed (). Imperfect active and so unpaid. Five hundred and fifty like two hundred and fifty dollars and twenty-five dollars.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Creditor [] . From daneion, a loan. Properly a lender of money at interest. Rev., lender. See on ch. Luk 6:34.
Pence [] . See on Mt 20:2.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
THE CREDITOR AND TWO DEBTORS V. 41-60
1) “There was a certain creditor which had two debtors,” (duo chreopheiletai esan daneiste tini) “A certain creditor had two debtors,” two persons who owed him debts, who were indebted to him, as all men are to God, Act 17:28; La 3:22, 23. God, our Saviour is that creditor, 2Pe 3:9. The two persons (debtors) alluded to are Simon the Pharisee and the fallen woman.
2) “The one owed five hundred pence,” (ho eis ophellen dnaria pentakosia) “The one owed five hundred denari (pence),” the fallen woman who had come to Jesus with such deep repentance, in grief.
3) “And the other fifty.” (ho de heteros pontekonta) “Then the other fifty,” only one-tenth that amount, a petty debt. Simon likely had no suspicion of a personal reference in the story. Yet he was that second debtor, who, if even saved showed but a minute gratitude to Jesus in comparison with what the fallen, penitent harlot had done.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
41. A certain creditor had two debtors The scope of this parable is to demonstrate, that Simon is wrong in condemning the woman who is acquitted by the heavenly judge. He proves that she is righteous, not because she pleased God, but because her sins were forgiven; for otherwise her case would not correspond to the parable, in which Christ expressly states, that the creditor freely forgave the debtors who were not able to pay. We cannot avoid wondering, therefore, that the greater part of commentators have fallen into so gross a blunder as to imagine that this woman, by her tears, and her anointing, and her kissing his feet, deserved the pardon of her sins. The argument which Christ employs was taken, not from the cause, but from the effect; for, until a favor has been received, it cannot awaken gratitude, (243) and the cause of reciprocal love is here declared to be a free forgiveness. In a word, Christ argues from the fruits or effects that follow it, that this woman has been reconciled to God.
(243) “ Veu que le remerciment presuppose tousiours qu’on ait avant receuquelque bien;” — “since gratitude always presupposes that some favor has been received.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(41, 42) There was a certain creditor . . .The parable has some points of resemblance to that of the Two Debtors in Mat. 18:23. Here, however, the debts, though different, are not separated by so wide an interval as are the ten thousand talents and the hundred pence. The debts are both within the range of common human experience. The pence are, of course, the Roman denarii, worth about sevenpence-halfpenny each. The application of the parable treats the woman as a greater debtor than the Pharisee. She had committed greater sins. Each was equally powerless to pay the debti.e., to make atonement for his or her sins. Whatever hope either had lay in the fact that pardon was offered to both as a matter of free gift and bounty.
Frankly.Better, freely-i.e., gratuitously, as an act of bounty. So Shakespeare
I do beseech your grace. . . .
. . . . now to forgive me frankly.
Henry VIII., Act ii., Scene 1.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
41. A certain creditor The creditor is God; the two debtors stand for the woman and Simon. The two sums due represent the different moral characters of the two as they stand before the conscience of the world, and as they stand in view of their own moral judgment. One is, in the estimation probably of both, ten times better than the other.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“A certain money lender had two debtors, the one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they had not wherewith to pay, he forgave them both. Which of them therefore will love him most?”
The illustration was simply told. Two men had borrowed money from a moneylender, one fifty thousand pounds, the other five thousand. And then when the money lender discovered that they could not pay, probably to their great surprise, he cancelled their debts. Which then would love him the most?
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The parable and its application:
v. 41. There was a certain creditor which had two debtors; the one owed five hundred pence and the other fifty.
v. 42. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell Me therefore, which of them will love him most?
v. 43. Simon answered and said, I suppose that he to whom he forgave most. And He said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged.
v. 44. And He turned to the woman and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house; thou gavest Me no water for My feet, but she hath washed My feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.
v. 45. Thou gavest Me no kiss; but this woman, since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss My feet.
v. 46. My head with oil thou didst not anoint; but this woman hath anointed My feet with ointment. Two debtors were to one creditor; a fine bit of emphasis for the sake of the application of the parable: Simon and the woman, both debtors to the Lord. In the one case the debt was very large, five hundred denarii, almost eighty-five dollars; in the other very small, only one-tenth of that sum. Both were unable to pay, both were excused from paying the debt. Now the question was: Which of the two debtors was under the greater obligation to the Lord, and whose love would therefore be the greater? The answer was obvious, although the Pharisee answered somewhat cautiously that such was his opinion. Jesus accepted the answer gravely. But now came the application. For the first time Jesus turned to the woman directly and also asks Simon to look at her whom he had despised so absolutely. For the proud Pharisee could learn a lesson from the outcast of society. Jesus draws a parallel between the behavior of Simon and of this woman. Note the sharp contrast throughout the description: water tears; kiss of welcome repeated kisses; common oil precious ointment. Simon had not even observed the common courtesies invariably extended to a visitor or guest. When a guest came to the house of a Jew, he was greeted with a salutation and with a kiss, out under the entrance portico. Then the servants brought the water for rinsing off the feet, since people wore only sandals, and their feet became very dusty. And then followed the anointing with oil, of which a few drops were poured on the head of the guest. The words of Christ were a fine, effective reproof. “That, then, is the office of Christ the Lord which He carries on in the world, namely, that He rebukes sin and forgives sin. He rebukes the sin of those that do not acknowledge their sin, and especially of those that do not want to be sinners and consider themselves holy, as this Pharisee did. He forgives sin to those that feel it and desire forgiveness; as this woman was a sinner. With His rebuke He earns little thanks; with the forgiveness of sins He succeeds in having His doctrine branded as heresy and blasphemy. But neither should be omitted. The preaching unto repentance and the rebuking we must have, in order that people come to the knowledge of their sins and become meek. The preaching of grace and of forgiveness of sins we must have, in order that the people do not fall into despair. Therefore the preacher’s office should preserve the mean between presumption and despair, that preaching is done thus that people neither become presumptuous nor despair.”
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Luk 7:41. Five hundred pence, , a Roman coin, in value about seven pence halfpenny of our money; so that five hundred were nearly equivalent to fifteen of our guineas, and fifty to one guinea and a half. There is no reason to believe that any mystery was intended by Christ in fixing on these sums rather than any others, which had as great a difference between them.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Luk 7:41-43 . By the one debtor [112] the woman is typified, by the other Simon , both with a view to what is to be said at Luk 7:47 . The supposition that both of them had been healed by Jesus of a disease (Paulus, Kuinoel), does not, so far as Simon is concerned, find any sure ground (in opposition to Holtzmann) in the of the later narrative of the anointing (in Matthew and Mark). The creditor is Christ , of whose debtors the one owes Him a ten times heavier debt (referring to the woman in her agony of repentance) than the other (the Pharisee regarded as the righteous man he fancied himself to be). The difference in the degree of guilt is measured by the difference in the subjective consciousness of guilt; by this also is measured the much or little of the forgiveness , which again has for its result the much or little of the grateful love shown to Christ, Luk 7:41 ff.
] “Ergo non solvitur debitum subsequente amore et grato animo,” Bengel.
On the interpolated , which makes the question more pointed, comp. Bremi, ad Dem. adv. Phil. I. p. 119.
[112] Instead of ., the late inferior form of writing, . is on decisive evidence to be adopted, along with Lachmann and Tischendorf (Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 691).
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
41 There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty.
Ver. 41. There was a certain creditor ] Christ tells the supercilious and self-conceited Pharisee by this parable, that himself was a sinner also as well as the woman, and as a debtor to God’s judgment, had as much need of his grace in Christ for remission of sin and removal of wrath.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
41. ] We must remember that our Lord is here setting forth the matter primarily with reference to Simon’s subjective view of himself, and therefore not strictly as regards the actual comparative sinfulness of these two before God. Though however not to be pressed, the case may have been so: and, I am inclined to think, was so . The clear light of truth in which every word of His was spoken, will hardly allow us to suppose that such an admission would have been made to the Pharisee, if it had not really been so in fact. But see more below.
. ] The debtors are the prominent persons in the parable the creditor is necessary indeed to it, but is in the background . And this remark is important for on bearing it carefully in mind the right understanding of the parable depends. The Lord speaks from the position of the debtors , and applies to their case the considerations of ordinary gratitude and justice. And in doing so it is to be noticed, that he makes an assumption for the purpose of the parable: that sin = the sense of sin , just as a debt is felt to the amount of the debt. The disorganization of our moral nature, the deadly sedative effect of sin in lulling the conscience, which renders the greatest sinner the least ready for pemtence, does not here come into consideration; the examples being two persons, both aware of their debt . This assumption itself is absolutely necessary for the parable: for if forgiveness is to awaken love in proportion to the magnitude of that which is forgiven, sin in such a connexion must be the subjective debt which is felt to exist, not the objective one, the magnitude of which we never can know, but God only: see on Luk 7:47 below.
a very different ratio from the ten thousand talents and the hundred pence in Mat 18:21-35 , because there it is intended to shew us how insignificant our sins towards one another are in comparison with the offence of us all before God.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Luk 7:41 . The parable of the two debtors, an original feature in the story. : here and in Luk 16:5 , only, in N.T. (here only in N.T.): might mean a usurer, but his behaviour in the story makes it more suitable to think of him simply as a creditor . : even the larger sum was a petty debt, whereby Simon would be thrown off his guard: no suspicion of a personal reference.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Luke
THE TWO DEBTORS
Luk 7:41 – Luk 7:43
We all know the lovely story in which this parable is embedded. A woman of notoriously bad character had somehow come in contact with Jesus Christ, and had by Him been aroused from her sensuality and degradation, and calmed by the assurance of forgiveness. So, when she heard that He was in her own town, what could she do but hasten to the Pharisee’s house, and brave the cruel, scornful eyes of the eminently respectable people that would meet her there? She carries with her part of the spoils and instruments of her sinful adornment, to devote it to His service; but before she can open the cruse, her heart opens, and the hot tears flow on His feet, inflicting an indignity where she had meant an honour. She has nothing at hand to repair the fault, she will not venture to take her poor garment, which might have done it, but with a touch, she loosens her long hair, and with the ingenuity and self-abasement of love, uses that for a towel. Then, gathering confidence from her reception, and carried further than she had meant, she ventures to lay her sinful lips on His feet, as if asking pardon for the tears that would come-the only lips, except those of the traitor, that are recorded as having touched the Master. And only then does she dare to pour upon Him her only wealth.
What says the Pharisee? Has he a heart at all? He is scandalised at such a scene at his respectable table; and no wonder, for he could not have known that a change had passed upon the woman, and her evil repute was obviously notorious. He does not wonder at her having found her way into his house, for the meal was half public. But he began to doubt whether a Man who tolerates such familiarities from such a person could be a prophet; or if He were, whether He could be a good man. ‘He would have known her if He had been a prophet,’ thinks he. The thought is only a questionably true one. ‘If He had known her, He would have thrust her back with His foot,’ he thinks; and that thought is obviously false. But Simon’s righteousness was of the sort that gathers up its own robes about it, and shoves back the poor sinner into the filth. ‘She is a sinner,’ says he. No, Simon! she was a sinner, but she is a penitent, and is on the road to be a saint, and having been washed, she is a great deal cleaner than thou art, who art only white-washed.
Our Lord’s parable is the answer to the Pharisee’s thought, and in it Jesus shows Simon that He knows him and the woman a great deal better than he did. There are three things to which briefly I ask your attention-the common debt, in varying amounts; the common insolvency; and the love, like the debt, varying in amount. Now, note these things in order.
I. There is, first of all, the common debt.
But the point that I want you to notice is that these two in our parable, though they are meant to be portraits of Simon and the woman, are also representatives of the two classes to one or other of which we all belong. They are both debtors, though one owes but a tenth of what the other does. That is to say, our Lord here draws a broad distinction between people who are outwardly respectable, decent, cleanly living, and people who have fallen into the habit, and are living a life, of gross and open transgression. There has been a great deal of very pernicious loose representation of the attitude of Christianity in reference to this matter, common in evangelical pulpits. And I want you to observe that our Lord draws a broad line and says, ‘Yes! you, Simon, are a great deal better than that woman was. She was coarse, unclean, her innocence gone, her purity stained. She had been wallowing in filth, and you, with your respectability, your rigid morality, your punctilious observance of the ordinary human duties, you were far better than she was, and had far less to answer for than she had.’ Fifty is only a tenth of five hundred, and there is a broad distinction, which nothing ought to be allowed to obliterate, between people who, without religion, are trying to do right, to keep themselves in the paths of morality and righteousness, to discharge their duty to their fellows, controlling their passions and their flesh, and others who put the reins upon the necks of the horses and let them carry them where they will, and live in an eminent manner for the world and the flesh and the devil. And there is nothing in evangelical Christianity which in the smallest degree obliterates that distinction, but rather it emphasises it, and gives a man full credit for any difference that there is in his life and conduct and character between himself and the man of gross transgression.
But then it says, on the other side, the difference which does exist, and is not to be minimised, is, after all, a difference of degree. They are both debtors. They stand in the same relation to the creditor, though the amount of the indebtedness is extremely different. We are all sinful men, and we stand in the same relation to God, though one of us may be much darker and blacker than the other.
And then, remember, that when you begin to talk about the guilt of actions in God’s sight, you have to go far below the mere surface. If we could see the infinite complexity of motives-aggravations on the one side and palliations on the other-which go to the doing of a single deed, we should not be so quick to pronounce that the publican and the harlot are worse than the Pharisee. It is quite possible that an action which passes muster in regard to the morality of the world may, if regard be had which God only can exercise to the motive for which it is done, be as bad as, if not worse than, the lust and the animalism, drunkenness and debauchery, crime and murder, which the vulgar scales of the world consider to be the heavier. If you once begin to try to measure guilt, you will have to pass under the surface appearance, and will find that many a white and dazzling act has a very rotten inside, and that many a very corrupt and foul one does not come from so corrupt a source as at first sight might seem to be its origin. Let us be very modest in our estimate of the varying guilt of actions, and remember that, deep down below all diversities, there lies a fundamental identity, in which there is no difference, that all of us respectable people that never broke a law of the nation, and scarcely ever a law of propriety, in our lives, and the outcasts, if there are any here now, the drunkards, the sensualists, all of us stand in this respect in the same class. We are all debtors, for we have ‘all sinned and come short of the glory of God,’ A viper an inch long and the thickness of whipcord has a sting and poison in it, and is a viper. And if the question is whether a man has got small-pox or not, one pustule is as good evidence as if he was spotted all over. So, remember, he who owes five hundred and he who owes the tenth part of it, which is fifty, are both debtors.
II. Now notice the common insolvency.
I admit, of course, that men without any recognition of God’s pardoning mercy, or any of the joyful impulse that comes from the sense of Christ’s redemption, or any of the help that is given by the indwelling of the Spirit who sanctifies may do a great deal in the way of mending their characters and making themselves purer and nobler. But that is not the point which my text contemplates, because it deals with a past. And the fact that lies under the metaphor of my text is this, that none of us can in any degree diminish our sin, considered as a debt to God. What can you and I do to lighten our souls of the burden of guilt? What we have written we have written. Tears will not wash it out, and amendment will not alter the past, which stands frowning and irrevocable. If there be a God at all, then our consciences, which speak to us of demerit, proclaim guilt in its two elements-the sense of having done wrong, and the foreboding of punishment therefor. Guilt cannot be dealt with by the guilty one: it must be Some One else who deals with it. He, and only He against whom we have sinned, can touch the great burden that we have piled upon us.
Brother! we have nothing to pay. We may mend our ways; but that does not touch the past. We may hate the evil; that will help to keep us from doing it in the future, but it does not affect our responsibility for what is done. We cannot touch it; there it stands irrevocable, with this solemn sentence written over the black pile, ‘Every transgression and disobedience shall receive its just recompense of reward.’ We have nothing to pay.
But my text suggests, further, that a condition precedent to forgiveness is the recognition by us of our penniless insolvency. Though it is not distinctly stated, it is clearly and necessarily implied in the narrative, that the two debtors are to be supposed as having come and held out a couple of pairs of empty hands, and sued in form pauperis . You must recognise your insolvency if you expect to be forgiven. God does not accept dividends, so much in the pound, and let you off the rest on consideration thereof. If you are going to pay, you have to pay all; if He is going to forgive, you have to let Him forgive all. It must be one thing or the other, and you and I have to elect which of the two we shall stand by, and which of the two shall be applied to us.
Oh, dear friends! may we all come and say,
‘Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy Cross I cling.
III. And so, lastly, notice the love, which varies with the forgiveness.
‘Tell Me which of them will love him most.’ Simon does not penetrate Christ’s design, and there is a dash of supercilious contempt for the story and the question, as it seems to me, in the languid, half-courteous answer:-’I suppose, if it were worth my while to think about such a thing, that he to whom he forgave the most.’ He did not know what a battery was going to be unmasked. Jesus says, ‘Thou hast rightly judged.’
The man that is most forgiven is the man that will love most. Well, that answer is true if all other things about the two debtors are equal. If they are the same sort of men, with the same openness to sentiments of gratitude and generosity, the man who is let off the smaller debt will generally be less obliged than the man who is let off the larger. But it is, alas! not always the case that we can measure benefits conferred by gratitude shown. Another element comes in-namely, the consciousness of the benefit received-which measures the gratitude far more accurately than the actual benefit bestowed. And so we must take both these things, the actual amount of forgiveness, so to speak, which is conferred, and the depth of the sense of the forgiveness received, in order to get the measure of the love which answers it. So that this principle breaks up into two thoughts, of which I have only just a word or two to say.
First, it is very often true that the greatest sinners make the greatest saints. There have been plenty of instances all down the history of the world, and there are plenty of instances, thank God, cropping up every day still in which some poor, wretched outcast, away out in the darkness, living on the husks that the swine do eat, and liking to be in the pigstye, is brought back into the Father’s house, and turns out a far more loving son and a far better servant than the man that had never wandered away from it. ‘The publicans and the harlots’ do often yet ‘go into the Kingdom of God before’ the respectable people.
And there are plenty of people in Manchester that you would not touch with a pair of tongs who, if they could be got hold of, would make far more earnest and devoted Christians than you are. The very strength of passion and feeling which has swept them wrong, rightly directed, would make grand saints of them, just as the very same conditions of climate which, at tropics, bring tornadoes and cyclones and dreadful thunder-storms, do also bring abundant fertility. The river which devastates a nation, dammed up within banks, may fertilise half a continent. And if a man is brought out of the darkness, and looks back upon the years that are wasted, that may help him to a more intense consecration. And if he remembers the filth out of which Jesus Christ picked him, it will bind him to that Lord with a bond deep and sacred.
So let no outcast man or woman listening to me now despair. You can come back from the furthest darkness, and whatever ugly things you have in your memories and your consciences, you may make them stepping-stones on which to climb to the very throne of God. Let no respectable people despise the outcasts; there may be the making in them of far better Christians than we are.
But, on the other hand, let no man think lightly of sin. Though it can be forgiven and swept away, and the gross sinner may become the great saint, there will be scars and bitter memories and habits surging up again after we thought they were dead; and the old ague and fever that we caught in the pestilential land will hang by us when we have migrated into a more wholesome climate. It is never good for a man to have sinned, even though, through his sin, God may have taken occasion to bring him near to Himself.
But the second form of this principle is always true-namely, that those who are most conscious of forgiveness will be most fruitful of love. The depth and fervour of our individual Christianity depends more largely on the clearness of our consciousness of our own personal guilt and the firmness of our grasp of forgiveness than upon anything else.
Why is it that such multitudes of you professing Christians are such icebergs in your Christianity? Mainly for this reason-that you have never found out, in anything like an adequate measure, how great a sinner you are, and how sure and sweet and sufficient Christ’s pardoning mercy is. And so you are like Simon-you will ask Jesus to dinner, but you will not give Him any water for His feet or ointment for His head. You will do the conventional and necessary pieces of politeness, but not one act of impulse from the heart ever comes from you. You discharge ‘the duties of religion.’ What a phrase! You discharge the duties of religion. Ah! My brother, if you had been down into the horrible pit and the miry clay, and had seen a hand and a face looking down, and an arm outstretched to lift you; and if you had ever known what the rapture was after that subterraneous experience of having your feet set upon a rock and your goings established, you would come to Him and you would say, ‘Take me all, O Lord! for I am all redeemed by Thee.’ ‘To whom little is forgiven the same loveth little.’ Does not that explain the imperfect Christianity of thousands of us?
Fifty pence and five hundred pence are both small sums. Our Lord had nothing to do here with the absolute amount of debt, but only with the comparative amount of the two debts. But when He wanted to tell the people what the absolute amount of the debt was, he did it in that other story of the Unfaithful Servant. He owed his lord, not fifty pence fifty eightpences or thereabouts, not five hundred pence, but ‘ten thousand talents,’ which comes to near two and a half millions of English money. And that is the picture of our indebtedness to God. ‘We have nothing to pay.’ Here is the payment-that Cross, that dying Christ. Turn your faith there, my brother, and then you will get ample forgiveness, and that will kindle love, and that will overflow in service. For the aperture in the heart at which forgiveness enters in is precisely of the same width as the one at which love goes out. Christ has loved us all, and perfectly. Let us love Him back again, who has died that we might live, and borne our sins in His own body.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
There was, &c. Greek. “There were two debtors to a certain money-lender”.
pence = denarii. See App-51.
other = a different one. Greek. heteros. See App-124.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
41.] We must remember that our Lord is here setting forth the matter primarily with reference to Simons subjective view of himself, and therefore not strictly as regards the actual comparative sinfulness of these two before God. Though however not to be pressed, the case may have been so: and, I am inclined to think, was so. The clear light of truth in which every word of His was spoken, will hardly allow us to suppose that such an admission would have been made to the Pharisee, if it had not really been so in fact. But see more below.
.] The debtors are the prominent persons in the parable-the creditor is necessary indeed to it, but is in the background. And this remark is important-for on bearing it carefully in mind the right understanding of the parable depends. The Lord speaks from the position of the debtors, and applies to their case the considerations of ordinary gratitude and justice. And in doing so it is to be noticed, that he makes an assumption for the purpose of the parable:-that sin = the sense of sin, just as a debt is felt to the amount of the debt. The disorganization of our moral nature, the deadly sedative effect of sin in lulling the conscience, which renders the greatest sinner the least ready for pemtence, does not here come into consideration; the examples being two persons, both aware of their debt. This assumption itself is absolutely necessary for the parable: for if forgiveness is to awaken love in proportion to the magnitude of that which is forgiven, sin in such a connexion must be the subjective debt which is felt to exist, not the objective one, the magnitude of which we never can know, but God only: see on Luk 7:47 below.
-a very different ratio from the ten thousand talents and the hundred pence in Mat 18:21-35, because there it is intended to shew us how insignificant our sins towards one another are in comparison with the offence of us all before God.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
a certain: Luk 11:4, Luk 13:4, *marg. Isa 50:1, Mat 6:12, Mat 18:23-25
the one: Luk 7:47, Rom 5:20, 1Ti 1:15, 1Ti 1:16
pence: Mat 18:28, *marg.
the other: Luk 12:48, Num 27:3, Jer 3:11, Joh 15:22-24, Rom 3:23, 1Jo 1:8-10
Reciprocal: Mat 18:24 – owed Luk 16:5 – his Joh 19:11 – the greater
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1
A pence would be worth about sixteen cents in our money. The value of the individual coin is unimportant, the illustration being drawn from the difference between fifty and five hundred.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Luk 7:41. A certain money lender had two debtors. The former represents our Lord, the two debtors the woman and Simon respectively. But in the parable the lender is in the background, the emphasis rests upon the comparison between the respective amounts: The one owed five hundred pence (denaries), and the other fifty. For the value, see Mat 18:28. The debt is sin, or strictly speaking, here the sense of sin. Probably, but not certainly, the actual relative sinfulness of the woman and Simon might have been thus represented. That the sense of sin is meant appears from the application, since gratitude for forgiveness of sin must be based upon that, not upon actual guilt which we cannot measure. Hence the truth that many great sinners do not feel their guilt is here left out of view.Some suppose that the respective debts represent, in the one case the casting out of seven demons, in the other a healing from leprosy, thus identifying the persons with Mary Magdalene and Simon the leper. Others substitute the honor of a visit from our Lord for the healing from leprosy. Both crow out of the assumption that the woman was Mary Magdalene, and neither affords a satisfactory interpretation.The ratio here is very different from that in the parable of the unforgiving servant (Mat 18:21-35), since the things compared are very different.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Jesus proceeded to tell His host a parable about two debtors. A denarius was worth one day’s wage for an agricultural laborer. Regardless of the buying power of the money in view obviously both men owed considerable debts, but one was 10 times greater than the other. Jesus regarded love as the expression of gratitude.