There was a certain creditor which had two debtors; the one owed him five hundred pence, and the other fifty. Luke 7:41
How much money did these debtors owe? Translating Roman or Jewish money of Jesus’ time into our money is difficult to do for many reasons, so we have to make the assumption that the amounts listed in our text represent large debts, one of which was ten times as large as the other. How they became so indebted we don’t know. Nor do we know why the creditor extended credit to them, because neither of them had any resources to cover their debt. Their pockets were equally empty. And regardless of the relative size of their debts, they were both bearing the same label: debtor. Just like all of us bear the same label: sinner, regardless of how many sins we have committed.
Before the Lord Jesus were two people. One of them was a woman who had a reputation as a sinner, living in immorality so rank that respectable people in the neighbourhood shunned her. Was she the five hundred pence debtor? She would be the first to say so, and we could not dispute that. The other person was a Pharisee, a keeper of religious observances, a passionate seeker of public acknowledgment of his good deeds and his zeal for God. Was he the five hundred pence debtor? He would dispute that and we would have to dig below the surface in order to challenge him. But the Lord Jesus was not speaking of the relative sinnership of these two people. He was speaking of how each of them perceived their own sinnership, and the sinnership of others. The woman felt the weight of her five hundred pence burden and had no thought of where others stood in their debt. The Pharisee gathered his fifty pence cloak of semi-righteousness about him and readily identified the five hundred pence debtors that he saw about him. With which of these do we identify today.
If asked, we would all confess to being the five hundred pence debtor. We confessed as much before we were saved. And we gladly accepted the free and full forgiveness that our Creditor provided. The knowledge that our sins are gone and the judgment of them is forever past is cause for us to rejoice and sing and praise our Redeemer. But what is our attitude today toward our sinnership? Have we moved ourselves a little closer to the fifty than the five hundred, now that we are seeking to serve the Lord?
Look about us and see how the world slops about in its immorality, drunkenness, and mad rush for the pleasures of sin. In contrast, the believers keep themselves from the degrading things around us as we follow our Lord’s command to keep ourselves pure. Does this make us better than those sinners around us? Be careful! Only the grace of God has delivered us from the sinful lifestyles of the world. And only the grace of God keeps us from behaving just like the five hundred pence debtors around us.
We are saints. Saints are five hundred pence debtors who are saved by grace. – Jim MacIntosh