"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)
It is no wonder why Paul spent three chapters (and 5:12-21) confining all man under sin and condemnation. I believe part of the reason is if you do not understand your sinfulness and that you deserve God's righteous wrath, you will never see your need for Christ the Savior. And if you don't understand His work as Savior then you won't love Him much, if at all. There are lots of folks that think of Jesus more like a Ghandi type figure than they do as our saving Lord. Sadly, because people fail to grasp their own sinfulness (both on account of Adam and their own personal sins) they fail to love, worship and praise Christ for who He is. I believe precisely what the Lord says in Luke 7:47 applies to much of contemporary Christianity (or at least for what passes for Christianity). People love Him little because they minimize their condition apart from Him. They tend to see themselves as a sick person in need of a little help rather than a dead person in need of life; as a sick person that has "mistakes," "shortcomings," "failures" and "faults," and when you minimize sin like that the logical outcome is that you're really forgiven little.
Romans 5:12-21 makes it clear that we all are accountable for that sin in the garden, yet we also commit personal sins that are abhorrent and direct rebellion to an absolute holy God and deserving of His just wrath and punishment. When I look at my past I recoil at the sins I committed. They are disgusting and vile to the natural human understanding and even much more to a perfectly righteous God. Amazingly, those sins and the future sins I will commit are forgiven because of Christ; I am clothed in His perfect righteousness because He kept the Law perfectly for sinners and died a death we deserve. He alone was and is the worthy and spotless Lamb of God that absorbed the righteous wrath of the Father due to unholy sinners. This is why countless believers have died martyrs deaths and fought many battles for their King. Athanasius, Augustine, Wycliff, Huss,Tyndale, Luther, Calvin and the list can go on and on. These men understood that they were forgiven much, therefore, they loved Christ much because He is the reason we are forgiven and freed from our bondage to sin. A failure to understand that all humans are born sinners, separated from God, His enemies and under His judgment will lead to a false view of salvation, a different Jesus and a mockery of the cross. A person will not love Christ much, if they don't see how bad off they are without Him.
Our actions and not just our emotions will demonstrate if we do understand that we have been forgiven much. This I believe is why the womans actions towards the Lord are recorded for us. Look at what the text says about this forgiven sinner, "And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment" ( Luke 7:37-38). That's right this blatant well known sinful woman got it! She was a sinner- she knew it, the Pharisee knew it and Jesus knew it; her devotion to Christ, poured out in her actions, vouches that she indeed understood she was a sinner in need of much forgiveness that only Jesus could give. She didn't love Christ because He set a good moral example for her (even though he did that as well) but as Jesus said, "Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little”(Lk 7:47).
There is an awful lot of chatter these days about how people love Jesus. What's lacking is the demonstration of it. I don't doubt for a second that people can get emotional about Christ. I know that I can. Many pastors say that hell is the most difficult topic they've preached on, but for me it's the Gospel that is the most difficult. I get choked up when I preach about Christ and what He accomplished for sinners. But love is not just about our emotions and sentiments. It involves our actions. Imagine for a minute that a man says he loves his wife and gets "butterflies" in his stomach when he thinks about her. Now imagine this same man sits idly by when his wife is verbally assaulted. Still think that he loves her much? Why then when the Gospel of Christ is altered and tampered with, the silence from contemporary Christianity is so loud? And why is it when these Christians do speak up they go after the ones loving their Savior much by defending His name? I think it goes back to what I said at the beginning. Calvin said it best: "A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent." We love our Master so much that we are willing to take the gloves off and defend His name (not that He needs us but that He decreed to use us) when He is attacked. True love demands it!
We echo with Paul, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me"(Ga 2:20). Soli Deo Gloria!
For His Glory,
Fernando
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