Therefore, the Lord Christ commands all men, in every place, to repent. But when Christ here compares all sins with debts, as He also does in Matthew 6:12 in the Lord’s Prayer, where He calls them debts, He points us to the tablets of the divine Law, where it is written with eternal, indelible letters how much we have received from God and how great is the debt we have incurred. These tablets are made of stone; therefore, the debt is engraved deeply and permanently. Nor is the lender to whom we are indebted to be taken lightly. He has great power and gives close attention to the accounting. He places our “unknown sins in the light before His divine sight” (Psa. 90:8) and will hold a strict reckoning in due time (Mat. 18:34). Therefore, it is highly recommended that we come forth during the time of grace and humbly seek from Him the removal of our debts through Christ, take refuge in Christ, who has repaid them for us (Psa. 69:5) and has given His precious blood for us as the redemption price. With our own repayment, all is lost. We are indebted to the Lord God with all that we have. How, then, could we repay Him with it? Let us run to Christ with true faith, lay hold of His feet and not leave Him until He blesses us and absolves us from our debt of sin. And since there are so many things that would drive us away from Christ or keep us from Him, let us cling to Him all the more tightly. He will speak to us kindly in the end.

(Sermon for Mary Magdalene-July 22, Postilla Volume 3 by Johann Gerhard, Repristination Press, page 112-113)

“But the one who is forgiven little loves little.” If a person does not recognize that he is loaded down with a great debt of sin and does not realize that he is in dire need of forgiveness for it, he also loves little. At this, Christ turns to the woman and says to her, “Your sins are forgiven,” and with this comforting absolution He assures her heart and conscience of the gracious forgiveness of sins. But the other table guests who were present said to themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” Does not that belong to the Lord God alone? Therefore, He says further to the woman, “Your faith has saved you,” by which you have grasped the evangelical promise about the forgiveness of sins. “Go in peace.”

From this, we learn first, that repentance is necessary, not only for those who fall into gross outward sins, but for all men in common. For Christ sets His heavenly Father before us in this parable as a rich Lord who has granted us all kinds of possessions and has summoned us to make an accounting. But we have incurred a debt which we are far too poor to pay off, as the parable expressly shows that even the one who owed only fifty denarii could not repay it. This is as much as to say: Not only those are debtors before God’s judgment who have committed outward sins, but also those who have sinned in their hearts have incurred a debt. In this situation, one person can boast as little as the next that he is debt-free, or that he has paid off his debt. This is why it says universally, “They are all sinners; there is no difference here” (Rom. 3:23).

(Sermon for Mary Magdalene-July 22, Postilla Volume 3 by Johann Gerhard, Repristination Press, page 112)