TWO DEBTORS AND TWO MALEFACTORS
S. McCallum
These scriptures speak about two debtors and two malefactors. Luke is a most encouraging gospel to say a word from because of the rich way in which it deals with the compassions of God in the gospel. All through this gospel we have remarkable references to God’s saving grace, and the wonderful way in which God looks upon the needs of humanity. In the Person of Jesus He identifies Himself with the needs of humanity in a compassion that greatly affects you as you go through the gospel. Whether there are persons deeply sunk in sin, whether they are guilty of crime, whether they have denied God His rights, all through this gospel we get the great thought of the world standing in reconciliation, as contemplating the death of Christ, and man standing provisionally in God’s favour. The Lord Jesus comes into this world, according to this gospel, and takes His place on the side of humanity.
So the title of the Lord in this gospel is Son of man. It is not Son of God, although this is referred to more than once, but it involves as Son of man what the Lord is as coming in on the side of men to take up the matters that involve men and involve humanity, in regard not only to sins, but also death, disease, and demon. We find how the Lord in the service of the glad tidings, as setting it on, identifies Himself with every need common to humanity. Luke speaks so attractively of the Lord coming into the world, coming in in a way that tends to attract souls to Him. Yet, too, He comes in in a way that awakens man’s hatred of God. In one part, early in this gospel, after He had spoken so attractively of being anointed to preach glad tidings to the different categories of weakness that mark humanity, they led Him to the brow of the hill and were going to cast Him down.
Each of these two sections deals with two persons—one is attracted to Jesus and to God as known in Jesus, and the other does not seem to have any proper affinity of feeling in connection with God and His actions in Jesus. This seventh chapter of Luke deals with the woman who was a sinner of the city, in Simon the Pharisee’s house. You never can trust the Simons—religious people are the most difficult to deal with, as this chapter shows. What a difficult man Simon was! And yet I suppose he thought he was doing the best he could to entertain the Lord. But, over against Simon, there was this woman of the city. She is one of the most attractive personalities in this gospel. It is remarkable as you read through Luke’s gospel how he speaks of widows and of how he speaks of young persons. He speaks of a girl, a maiden. He speaks of a boy whom death had claimed. Luke is most attractive in the way he draws our attention to God in Jesus dealing with these conditions in this scene where so much exists that is opposed to God in His operations in grace.
So this matter of the two debtors comes up. Debt is quite a thing in the world today. There have been more bankruptcies this year than there have been for quite a few years. I was noticing the statistics the other day concerning bankruptcies in Michigan. People have got into debt in such a way that they cannot liquidate themselves; they cannot clear themselves. It is bad enough in business when that happens, but what the Lord is really at here is persons who are sinners. The two debtors refer to this. I wonder how much we have felt being in debt in regard to sin. It is a great matter that we should get fully clear in regard to indebtedness to sin. The epistle to the Romans brings up the matter of sin and sins and tells us that “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”, Romans 3: 23. It is a great thing that we should not be light in regard to our sins and getting cleared from them. It is a great thing that there should be with us a full experience of having had to do with God about our sins, like this woman who had to do with the Lord about her sins in Simon the Pharisee’s house.
The Lord says to Simon, “I have somewhat to say to thee”. Think of the Lord saying that to some of us. Think of Him saying to you or to me, ‘I have somewhat to say to thee’. I am sure none of us here would say, ‘Well, I do not care to listen’. Simon listened. The Lord says, “There were two debtors of a certain creditor—one owed five hundred denarii and the other fifty; but as they had nothing to pay, he forgave both of them their debt”. This is the wonder of the gospel. When it comes to bankruptcy it is a question of whether you can pay fifty per cent, or forty per cent, or maybe just ten per cent. But when you come to the gospel you have to do with a forgiving God who is ready to forgive us when we do not have anything to pay.
It is a wonderful thing to have a sense of how God has taken us up, and how God has forgiven us all our sins. The Lord said to Simon, “Which of them therefore will love him most?”. It is remarkable how the Lord brings in the matter of love in regard to this thought of forgiveness. Perhaps we have not thought too much about love entering into the matter of forgiveness, but it is a great thing to be affected by what God has done in Christ in this matter of forgiving us our debt. We think of what it cost God, the clearing of the way for redemption, the forsaking of Christ on the cross, the shedding of His blood on the cross.
Think of all that enters into the greatness of the operations that were involved in our being cleared of all the debt that our sins incurred. All the liabilities were taken upon Jesus, and He bore them on the cross.
Simon answered, “I suppose he to whom he forgave the most”. I wonder who amongst us here would come in under the heading of “the most”. I wonder what we feel about the sins we have been forgiven. It humbles us to think of our history and the ways of God, and the matter of the sins that have attached to our histories, but how wonderful it is to think that God has forgiven us these things. How attractive Jesus is in this section! This woman—what a picture she presents! She was not cognizant of the stares around her, by which religious people are marked. Nobody stares at you, you know, so badly as a religious person, who thinks he is better than you are, or were. But there was no icy stare with Jesus. What a look Jesus would give this woman as she acted toward Him in an attitude which expressed her appreciation of the grace that reached and dealt with her sins, and gave her a link with the Saviour that entered into the expression of her love.
Because of what Simon did not do, and what, really, he could not do, she acted. She washed His feet with tears and wiped them with her hair. The Lord says to Simon, “Thou gavest me not a kiss, but she from the time I came in has not ceased kissing my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint, but she has anointed my feet with myrrh”. She never let up; she never ceased. It was not just a passing flash of attention that she paid to Jesus. She was deeply affected by the fact that the moral question, involving her sins, had been met by this Person, and she wanted to honour Him as He was worthy to be honoured, with all the affection she could lavish upon Him, Stranger of Galilee as He was to Simon the Pharisee. The Lord said, “For which cause I say to thee, Her many sins are forgiven; for she loved much; but he to whom little is forgiven loves little. And he said to her, Thy sins are forgiven”. What a message comes to us through Christ in the gospel this day, as we are convicted in regard to sins! What a touch it should be to any one of us! We should never lose the touch of our first knowledge of Christ and our contact with Him in relation to the matter of our sins, which the most of us would say were many.
Now I want to say a word as to the two malefactors. It is remarkable that we should have the two debtors to begin with in this gospel, and two malefactors at the end. What a scene it was at the cross! These malefactors were crucified with the Lord Jesus, one on one side and one on the other. But there is a difference that comes about; one is convicted, and the other is not. The one has reached a true judgment of himself. He says, in speaking to the other who spoke insultingly to Christ, “Dost thou too not fear God, thou that art under the same judgment? and we indeed justly, for we receive the just recompense of what we have done; but this man has done nothing amiss”. What an impression he had in his soul of the sinlessness of Jesus! How quickly he must have arrived at it, and how quickly the answer to his conviction was found. Quickly he gave expression to his conviction, and quickly an answer was found as he said to the Lord, “Remember me, Lord, when thou comest in thy kingdom”.
He must have gotten some impression of the kingdom of God and the Person of Jesus by his side. It is a wonderful thing to see that the kingdom of God involves forgiveness. That is the character it takes at the present time in the glad tidings, and this man gets an impression of the kingdom, and of the Lord as He was by his side, and he says, “Remember me, Lord, when thou comest in thy kingdom. And Jesus said to him, Verily I say to thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise”. How quickly the Lord answered the conviction that came about in this man! And that is what happens with any one of us. As we are convicted we will get a quick reply, as this man did. So he found his desire answered. Being a malefactor, he must have felt that it would be a great thing to be found in the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a transfer it would be! It is a great thing to understand what we have been transferred from, and what we have been introduced into, as it says, we have been delivered “from the authority of darkness, and translated … into the kingdom of the Son of his love”, Colossians 1: 13. God is holding out, as it were, the best for us, in the kingdom of the Son of His love.
We need to be affected by the way Luke presents our deliverance from all that stood against us morally. And when we come to Luke’s further treatise (this is his first treatise; we have another in the book of the Acts), he brings in the coming of the Spirit. That is a great matter of the gospel, that not only have our sins been met and dealt with, and forgiveness conveyed to us, but God proposes—how wonderful He is!—that we should have not only the forgiveness of sins, but the gift of the Spirit. Thus we have the power to live as believers should live, in keeping with all that the presence of the Spirit of God means, no longer hindered or hampered by the sense of any sins being upon us, but happy and free, and full of joy in the sense that our sins have been forgiven, and that we have the gift of the Spirit, who gives us the assurance of our sins being forgiven.
Well, I desired just to refer to the wonderful way in which Luke presents the gospel, and the attractive touches that he gives in regard to persons such as these, and others throughout the gospel, who had peace through their links with Christ. We referred to the woman who touched the Lord’s garment. That is a wonderful thing, that she had the sense that power had gone out of her, and the Lord had the sense that power had gone out of Him. So there was a meeting point between these two things—power going out of the woman, and power going out of Christ and affecting her. Thus we have the assembly, not composed of persons who have just read verses or studied books, but persons who have been vitally affected by power being in them that came out of Christ. May God help us to see the value of the glad tidings in the light of these matters, as Luke presents them, for His name’s sake.
Preaching at Plainfield, N.J.
26 January 1975