JESUS WAS WELL-KNOWN for daring to share meals with what the Jewish leaders of his day would have considered the riffraff, the people they labeled as “sinners.” Still, there were Pharisees among his disciples, including Nicodemus and later the apostle Paul. Jesus would eat with them too, if invited.

On one occasion, he was invited to dine at the house of a Pharisee named Simon. There’s no reason to suppose that the invitation wasn’t an honest one, despite the negative portrait the gospels typically paint of Pharisees. But that’s not to say that Simon had nothing to learn.

At Simon’s house, Jesus reclined at table; we might picture him lying on something like a sofa, propped up on one elbow, and using the other arm to reach out for food from the table in front of him. Luke tells us that an uninvited guest intrudes, whom he describes as a woman “who lived a sinful life” — likely a polite way of saying that she was a prostitute. She came up behind Jesus with a jar of perfume, probably thinking to anoint his head. But as she stood behind him, she began to weep, her tears falling uncontrollably on his feet. Unthinkingly, she let down her hair, using it to wipe his now wet feet, then kissed them in an act of pure devotion before anointing them with perfume.

Simon, the host, may have invited Jesus because he thought he was a prophet. But he was appalled at the wildly inappropriate scenario unfolding in front of him. That woman is the town prostitute! he thought silently to himself. Doesn’t Jesus know that? If he doesn’t, he must not be a prophet!

Knowing Simon’s unspoken thoughts, Jesus told him a parable about two people who were in debt to a moneylender. One debt was ten times the other, and neither could pay the money back. But surprisingly, the moneylender forgave both debts. “Now,” he asked Simon, “which of them will love him more?” (Luke 7:42, NIV).

It was an obvious question, and Simon answered correctly: “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven” (vs. 43).

Jesus affirmed his response and went on to explain. He praised the woman for her loving acts of devotion, contrasting what she had done for him with what Simon had failed to do. He had not honored Jesus by giving him water to wash his feet, or greeting him with a kiss, or anointing his head with oil. But this despised woman had washed his feet with her tears, then kissed them repeatedly and anointed them. I imagine Simon being speechless and embarrassed as Jesus made his point: “Whoever has been forgiven little loves little” (vs. 47).

Luke doesn’t say, but it makes sense to imagine that the woman already knew Jesus. She didn’t come seeking forgiveness. She had heard he would be there, and came with perfume to say thank you for the forgiveness she had already received. And Jesus, seeing her faithful, grateful love, reaffirmed that she was forgiven and sent her on her way with the blessing of peace.

. . .

AS WE’VE SEEN, one of Paul’s strategies for helping the Colossians steer clear of error is to show them the wondrous depth and breadth of the gospel in which they’ve already believed, so they can be amazed by it, grateful for it, and not feel a spiritual need for anything else. Something in the false teaching they’ve heard, probably some element of Judaism, has made them think they might need to be circumcised. Against this, Paul argues that they’ve already been circumcised, albeit not physically. Through the baptism they’ve already received, they were spiritually buried and raised with Christ, symbolically stripping away their old fleshly self, a metaphor for the way they used to think and live in rebellion against God.

Paul continues to hammer home his point, giving them even more for which they should be grateful:

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. (Col 2:13-14)

“He forgave us all our sins,” seems straightforward enough. But what does Paul mean when he says, as translated in the New International Version, that God “canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness”? Here, the Common English Bible reads, “He destroyed the record of the debt we owed,” while the New American Standard says that God “canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us.”

Paul’s Greek could be translated literally as referring to “the handwriting in the decrees,” and the word for “handwriting” only appears this one time in the entire New Testament. Moreover, unlike in the Lord’s Prayer, the word for “debt” doesn’t appear anywhere in these two verses, nor indeed, anywhere in the letter to the Colossians. So, what is this “handwriting”?

Paired with the word “decrees,” it suggests some written record with legal implications, and scholars debate just what metaphorical document this might be. The traditional interpretation, as reflected in the translations we read, sees it as something like a spiritual IOU, a certificate of the moral debt we owe to a holy God because of our sin. Others see it as a record of our sins themselves, and still others as a reference to the Law of Moses.

The interpretations are not entirely mutually exclusive, and whichever interpretation we choose, the point remains: a holy God has a legal claim against sinful humanity, and he himself is the one who takes it away. God doesn’t need to be persuaded to be gracious and forgiving. The cross was his idea. God disposes his claim against humanity by nailing it to the cross. That itself is an important image to ponder, as we’ll explore in the next post.

Meanwhile, if the Colossians could understand the debt they’ve been forgiven, would they love God more? If they loved God more, would they love false teaching less? Would they have more confidence in the sufficiency of the gospel and the supremacy of Christ?

Would we?