Luke 7:49 — Community Reflections

LUKE 7:49 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also?”

The other guests began to say among themselves, who is this who even forgives sins? — the guests' reaction mirrors the scribes' reaction at the paralytic healing: who is this who forgives sins? The question is the right question — only God can forgive sins — and the chapter has been building to this question since the centurion's servant. Jesus forgives sins with the same authority with which he heals diseases and raises the dead.

Church Fathers on Luke 7:49

Having said just before, And the people that heard him justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John the same Evangelist builds up in deed what he had proposed in word, namely, wisdom justified by the righteous and the penitent, saying, And one of the Pharisees desired him, &c.
Bede · 8th century

This account is full of precious instruction. For there are very many who justify themselves, being puffed up with the dreamings of an idle fancy, who before the time of Judgment comes, separate themselves as lambs from the herds, not willing even to join in eating with the many, and hardly with those who go not to extremes, but keep the middle path in life. St. Luke, the physician of souls rather than of bodies, represents therefore our Lord and Savior most mercifully…
Gregory of Nyssa · 4th century

A woman of corrupt life, but testifying her faithful affection, comes to Christ, as having power to release her from every fault, and to grant her pardon for the crimes she had committed. For it follows, And behold a woman in the city which was a sinner brought an alabaster box of ointment.
Cyril of Alexandria · 5th century

Read all 35 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

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