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Subject 22 : The Gospel According to LUKE

[Chapter 7-1] We Are People Who Are In Debt for 500 Denarii (Luke 7:36-50)

We Are People Who Are In Debt for 500 Denarii
(Luke 7:36-50)
“Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to eat. And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil. Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he spoke to himself, saying, ‘This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner.’ And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’ So he said, ‘Teacher, say it.’ ‘There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered and said, ‘I suppose the one whom he forgave more.’ And He said to him, ‘You have rightly judged.’ Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.’ Then He said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ And those who sat at the table with Him began to say to themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’ Then He said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.’”
 
 

How Much Sin Have We Been Forgiven by God?

 
Jesus has forgiven all the sins of you and me all at once through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Those who know and believe the righteousness of God cannot have sin in their hearts. The people who have received the remission of sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit are those who know and believe Jesus correctly. It is because our Lord came to this world and received the baptism from John the Baptist and shed blood on the Cross in order to remit all the sins of the world once and for all. People who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit do not have sin because the Lord blotted out all the sins of the world at once by receiving the baptism and shedding blood on the Cross. Jesus said to the woman who poured the fragrant oil on His feet, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.” People who believe the gospel of the water and the Spirit that is the righteousness of Jesus do not have sin.
Our Lord said to Simon the Pharisee, “There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?” Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.” And He said to him, “You have rightly judged.” Jesus said that the one who has been forgiven more loves Jesus more. Jesus said that whoever believes that Jesus forgave all the sins of the world through the gospel of the water and the Spirit does not have sin.
How about you when you look at yourself in the light of this Word? Our Lord said one person was in debt for 500 denarii and another person was in debt for 50 denarii, but the creditor forgave the debts of both debtors because neither had a way to pay off the debt. This Word is saying that Jesus blotted out all our sin all at once, and we who believe in such gospel of the water and the Spirit have no sin at all.
Then, the important thing is how we really knew ourselves and believed in the gospel. Some people thought they were people who committed so many sins like the person who was in debt for 500 denarii. Such people thought the only way to receive the remission of sins was by believing in the righteousness of the Lord because they have committed so much sin before the presence of God and because they are destined for hell due to those sins. The people who believe with the faith that the Lord has blotted out all such sins at once through the baptism He received and the blood on the Cross can receive the remission of sins in their hearts. Those who understand that they are people who cannot help but receive judgment for their sins are like the person who is in debt for 500 denarii before the presence of the Lord, and therefore they could receive the forgiveness of all the debt by believing in the righteousness of Jesus who saved them from all their sins. That is why Jesus said the person who received forgiveness for 500 denarii of debt loved Jesus more than the person who received forgiveness for 50 denarii of debt he had.
Here, Jesus illustrated this with two individuals, a woman who anointed His feet with fragrant oil and washed the feet of Jesus with her hair and a Pharisee who invited Him for dinner. The Lord forgave the debts of these two people in same way. The Lord came to blot out the sins of these two people all at once. Some people like the Pharisee remain as sinners even though they seem to live a holy life while the other people who seem like treacherous sinners and are actual sinners have become righteous by coming before the presence of God and receiving the remission of sins. God saved all human beings alike: This Pharisee and the well-known woman of the village. These two people had such a tremendous debt they could never repay, but the Lord knew these people could not repay the debt and resolved their debt unilaterally.
 
 

Our Lord Blotted Out All the Sins of All the People in the World

 
The Lord is the Savior who blotted out all the sins of all the people at once through the gospel of the water and the Spirit regardless of how little or how great their sin is in this world. But people see themselves just from their perspective and not from the standpoint of the Savior. As a result, they conclude that “I am a person who sins less than that person” or “I am a person who sins more than that person.” However, we were all the same sinners before the presence of God. We were all people who had no choice but to go to hell because we all had sin in same manner. We do not go to hell because we have sinned in relation to material things, nor do we go to Heaven just because we do not commit any sin. We are all same sinners whether we commit many sins or fewer sins before the presence of God. I am a little embarrassed to use this illustration, but let’s say the room is filthy whether there is small dung heap or big dung heap in the room. The consequences are the same in that they both smell bad and they both need to be cleaned up.
As such, our Lord blotted out all our sins through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Jesus resolved all our sins at once from His standpoint like this. People can receive the forgiveness of their sins if they believe in the righteousness of Jesus. They cannot have sin remain in their hearts if they believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Therefore, if they still have sin remaining in their hearts even after believing in the gospel of the water that is the righteousness of Jesus, it’s because they don’t believe the gospel of the water and the Spirit properly. The people who believe without understanding the gospel of the water and the Spirit correctly cannot receive the cleansing of sin.
Our Lord illustrated the woman who anointed the fragrant oil on the feet of Jesus, washed them with her tears, and hair as the debtor who owed 500 denarii and Simon the Pharisee as the debtor who owed 50 denarii. Then which of the two would have loved the righteousness of Jesus more? Of course, the one who received the forgiveness of 500 denarii of debt probably loved Jesus more.
We must acknowledge before the presence of God that we are also debtors who have committed 500 denarii worth of sin like this woman. It is because Jesus took the sins of this woman and our sins as well by coming to this world and receiving baptism from John the Baptist. All the sins of humanity were transferred over to the body of Jesus through the baptism Jesus received from John the Baptist. Therefore, we must believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit in order to receive cleansing of all our sins.
Even though we have committed 500 denarii worth of sins, we can believe that we no longer have those sins only when we have the faith of believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We do not have sin because Jesus has taken over all our sins by receiving the baptism and shed His blood, and because He approved those of us who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit as the people without sin. Our Lord resolved at once all the sins that we could not resolve by ourselves. We have received salvation from all sins and become people without sin by believing in the righteousness of Jesus because the Lord received the baptism from John the Baptist and took over all our sins upon Him at once.
 
 

We Do Not Have Sin Because We Believe That Jesus Forgave All Our Sins

 
We who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit have no sin because Jesus came to this world and received the baptism from John the Baptist and took our sins upon Him at once and shed His blood on the Cross. There is no alternative for us but to remain a sinner every day if we do not believe the baptism of Jesus and the blood on the Cross as our salvation. I reiterate that we have become people without sin and that it is because our Lord has remitted all our sins at once through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Hence, it is because the Lord washed away all our sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
There is no one in the world who can receive the remission of sins by resolving by themselves the problem of sins they have committed. A person cannot resolve the sins he has committed no matter how virtuous a life one has lived. Therefore, everyone absolutely needs the righteousness of Jesus. If there is a person who can say that he does not have sin, he has received the remission of that sin by believing in the righteousness of Jesus and he can be approved as a perfectly sinless person only when he has such faith. Such people have become the people without sin as white as snow because God has blotted out the sins through His mercy and love. All the people have filthy sins remaining in them if they have not washed their sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. People cannot wash away all the sins perfectly if not for the gospel of the water and the Spirit. It is impossible for a person to cleanse his own sin even with the best of instructions.
The bidet has been introduced as new bathroom culture. Warm water and cold water comes out from a bidet. Warm water comes out and rinses the genital area after a person finishes using the toilet. A person does not have to wipe the filth with the toilet paper, and he just has to press a button and water sprinkles out and rinses his bottom cleanly. Therefore, one is cleansed when he gets up from the toilet seat. The filthy thing cannot be cleansed if it is not washed with water.
As your body becomes clean when you clean it with water, our Lord took all our sins upon Him by receiving the baptism from John the Baptist and cleansed them at once. Such a person who believes in the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit cannot have sin. We have become people without sins because Jesus came to this world and received the baptism from John the Baptist, the representative of humanity, and because we have believed in that Jesus. We love and serve the righteousness of the Lord because we have received the remission of sins through the faith of believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
This woman broke an alabaster flask of fragrant oil and poured it over the feet of Jesus to prepare beforehand for Jesus’ sacrificial death. A corpse emits more stink as time passes by. Therefore, people wash the corpse with expensive flagrant oil before the burial and people generally cannot smell the corpse decomposing because of the flagrant oil. This woman stood at Jesus’ feet weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil. It is because this woman also knew that Jesus was the little Lamb of God who took the sins of the world upon Him by receiving the baptism. She did so for the burial of the Lord’s death. People who have received the grace of the salvation from the Lord, people who have received the forgiveness of all their sins, love our Lord, do the Lord’s work, and serve the righteousness of the Lord.
We have become without sin because our Lord took all our sins at once and shed blood. We have become without sin because our Lord took all our sins upon Him through the baptism Jesus received from John the Baptist and washed them away. People do not have their sins blotted away because they do not know that Jesus washed away all the sins of the world through the gospel of the water and the Spirit already before we knew this fact.
God saved us from the sins of the world through His Word of the Truth. How can people’s sins be blotted out through faith? Because Jesus blotted out the sins of humans at once, people who believe in this fact become sinless people. But there are many Christians who do not know they have already become sinless through the gospel of the water and the Spirit even though they profess to believe in Jesus as the Savior. Then, such people are actually nonbelievers who still have sin because they cannot believe what Jesus has done for the remission of their sins. Your sins disappear when you believe in Jesus Christ who came in this world by the gospel of the water and the Spirit as the Savior. It is because Jesus took all our sins by receiving the baptism from John the Baptist and wrote them off by being crucified in our stead; it is because He saved us from the sins of the world from His standpoint. Jesus became the Savior who lives forever by receiving the baptism from John the Baptist and being resurrected in three days after He suffered death by being nailed to the Cross with the sins of the world upon Him. Therefore, we finally became the sinless saints by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that God saved us with.
The true gospel is the gospel of the water and the Spirit that blots out all the sins of the world at once, and those who know and believe correctly in this true gospel become sinless without fail. We do not become sinless just because we profess to be Christians somehow, but we become sinless because Jesus came to this world and received our sins through the baptism He received from John the Baptist and paid off the wages of all those sins by shedding His blood on the Cross. We become sinless by believing in this fact. Such things are not done through human efforts. People are saved neither through their efforts nor through their sacrifices. As we can see even in today’s Scripture passage, it is because God wrote off all the sins of this notorious woman.
Noblemen of Europe possessed much land in the old days. Therefore, these noblemen had many servants who had made a living by working on the farmlands of the noblemen and doing chores. And there also were serfs who borrowed and farmed the landowner’s land and made a payment to the landlord from their harvest. When we look at the life of the noblemen in Europe at that time, the storehouse of the landowners overflowed and their wealth overflowed just through such taxation even though they do not do any work because they had much land. However, when there was a famine or damage from disease and harmful insects, serfs had to borrow food at a high rate interest. If a serf borrowed one sack of crop in autumn, then they had to pay back two sacks to the landowner the next autumn.
Therefore, it was common for serfs to fail in farming even though they had worked hard all through the year when farms were damaged from disease and harmful insects. And since the farming had failed and the farm was abandoned, there were not any seeds and therefore they had to go and receive seeds from the landowner and farm with more debt, and they consequently become more in debt even though they worked very hard every day. And when the serfs incurred too much debt and they did not have the ability to pay it back, then the serfs at times just gave up and said to the landowner, “Do whatever you want to do.” When such things happened, some landowners wrote off the debt at times. For example, a landowner used to write off the debts on his birthday or when his child got married. They might say, “Today’ is a happy day since my son is getting married. Therefore, I will write off all the debt if you bring the debt certificate for the debt you owe to me.” And when they took the certificate of debt to the landowner, the landowner ripped up the certificate and said, “You no longer have any debt to me.”
Our Lord said to us, “You have lived and will live in this world committing such and such sins. Bring all the sins that you have committed and will commit in this world to Me. I will write them off.” Our Lord received the baptism in this world, received the judgment on the Cross, and was resurrected on the third day after dying on the Cross. God wrote off all the sins of the people through His Son Jesus Christ. Therefore, a person who believes in this gospel has his sins written off and a person who does not believe this still remains a sinner. God wrote off the sins of all people of the world through His Son.
 
 

Then, Why Did God Write Off Our Sins? It Is Because We Do Not Have the Ability to Pay for the Sins

 
In our country, Korea, we have a special pardon system that releases criminals on such a day like the Independence Day of August 15th to celebrate the joy of the day. On such a day, the President of our country releases some kind of prisoners from prisons. In the same manner, God wrote off all the sins of people who had no choice but to go to hell because of their sin and saved them. Because God so loved us, He transferred our sins over to His Son Jesus Christ and made Him receive the judgment for our sins and suffer death by crucifixion on our stead. And God wrote off the sins of the people who believe in His Son Jesus Christ all at once. That is how we were able to receive salvation from all the sins.
When we look at this Word, Simon the Pharisee invited Jesus and His disciples to his house to have a dinner with them. However, Simon did not even give Jesus water to wash His hands when Jesus went to his home. Therefore, Jesus said to them as He was eating, “I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head.” Between the Pharisee and the woman, who loved Jesus more? This woman loved Jesus more. One who has greater debt written off comes to love more.
When Jesus blotted out sins through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, He blotted out all our sins for eternity. He blotted out all our sins at once without exception. People who have all their sins written off do God’s work from then on. They serve the righteousness of the Lord. This woman also did God’s work as she poured the fragrant oil over Jesus’ feet for the baptism Jesus received and the death of Jesus to be spread throughout the world. Jesus said, “Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.” The people who have had all their sins written off, the people who have received the remission of sins by believing in the righteousness of the Lord, spread the gospel of the Lord. Only those who have received the remission of their sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit can do God’s work; only those who have all their sins written off can give thanks to God and do God’s work.
However, those Christians who have not had their sins written off because they do not know the gospel of the water and the Spirit cannot do God’s work nor give thanks to God. That is because they do not know that the Lord has written off all their sins once and for all. Jesus forgave the woman’s sin at once even though this woman was a well-known sinner. We have received salvation by believing that our Lord wrote off all our sins at once through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and we love and serve the righteousness of the Lord even after being saved from all the sins. In addition, I want you to share this gospel of the water and the Spirit with other people. I want this gospel of water and the Spirit to be spread throughout the whole world.
Beloved saints, we have received the remission of sins. I believe that you and I have no sin, that all our sins have been written off at once and that Jesus saved us at once through His baptism and the blood He shed on the Cross. We hope this gospel of the water and the Spirit will be spread throughout the whole world through us again because we first believed in this true gospel. If we want to share the gospel of the water and the Spirit with other people, then we need to understand that Jesus has washed all our sins clean at once through the gospel of the water and the Spirit before we preach this true gospel. If we want to do God’s work, we must begin by believing that we have received the remission of all our sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We must believe with the understanding that we no longer have sin because Jesus washed all our sins by receiving the baptism from John the Baptist. We must yearn to spread the gospel of the water and the Spirit to the whole world and devote our faith and effort to this cause. We cannot help but be thankful to the fact that we no longer have sin because the Lord saved us from our sins, and therefore, we cannot but do God’s work voluntarily.
I give thanks to God. We have received the forgiveness of all our sins through the righteousness of our Lord. All our sins have been blotted out because our Lord came to this world and took them away at once through the baptism He received from John the Baptist. And we were able to receive salvation from the judgment of our sins because He bore the judgment for the sins by being nailed to the Cross. Those who believe in all this Truth of the gospel give glory to God. I give infinite thanks to the Lord who gives salvation to us so that we can do God’s work. I give thanks to God for bestowing grace in all things so that we can do the work of the righteousness of God even though we are beings who have many shortcomings.
We now have a mind to do much more righteous work of the Lord in our hearts. That is why we sometimes feel sad when we see people who do not accept the Lord’s salvation. But maybe that’s why we are so thankful for the salvation we have received. We give thanks to the Lord because we have already received salvation among all the people of the world that number as many as the grains of sand on the beach. I really want to preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit to other people to repay and give thanks for the grace He has given us. I really want to do much work of the Lord. I want to be a person who preaches the gospel even more always to domestic and foreign people. I want to go to many more revival meetings and do much more work for the Lord. I want to preach the gospel of the Lord all over the world because God forgave all my sins. I would not have such a heart if I have not been forgiven for my sins, but I have such heart because I am immensely thankful, as the one who has already received the precious salvation of the Lord by such grace of the Lord.
Now I have even deeper thanksgiving and I want to do the Lord’s work even more because I do not have to worry about my sin. I want to do the Lord’s work now since I no longer have to be tied down to myself because of my sin. God gave us this mind. I give thanks to the Lord who gives us such a precious grace of salvation.
 
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