I do not propose to dwell at all upon that familiar metaphor,
familiar to us all from its use in the Lord's Prayer, by which sin
and the guilt of sin are shadowed forth for us in an imperfect
fashion by the conception of debt. For duty neglected is a debt to
God, which can only be discharged by a penalty. And all sin, and its
consequent guilt and exposure to punishment, may be regarded under
the image of indebtedness.
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.