Two Sides of Love

We have been taught that love is a feeling — and so we have allowed forgiveness to become a transaction. But the gospel keeps pressing a different picture on us. Real love has two sides. One side is the mercy you receive when you could not earn it. The other is the mercy you extend when you were not required to. And the wall between those two sides is the wall that has to come down — not the wall of anger, but the wall of self.

Love has two sides — not one

For years I watched the church talk about love the way the world talks about it. "Just love people." "Let go and let God." "Forgive and forget." Sound sentences. Easy to say. Hard to walk — because forgiveness without repentance is not love, it is surrender. And love without mercy is not love either, it is restraint. Both halves are required. One half alone has produced a generation that confuses grace with permission, and a generation that confuses justice with bitterness. We need both sides.

This letter is built on two scenes. The first is in Luke 7, where a woman who was known for the wrong kind of love comes into a room and pours out the right kind of love at the feet of Jesus. The second is in Matthew 18, where a man who had just been forgiven the unimaginable walks out and refuses to forgive the small. One scene is the mercy coming down. The other scene is the mercy going out. And together they are the whole picture of what love is — not a feeling, but a movement. Not a moment, but a discipleship.

Notice the order Jesus did not say. He did not say, "She loved much, therefore her sins are forgiven." He said the opposite — her sins, which are many, are forgiven, and that is why she loved much. Forgiveness ran first. Love responded. And that is the picture we have inverted almost every time we open our mouths about grace.

Side One — The mercy that ran down

Read the scene slowly. A Pharisee named Simon had invited Jesus to dinner — but the Pharisees had a habit of inviting Jesus to dinner without actually inviting Jesus to dinner. They wanted to study him, not encounter him. They wanted to test the teacher, not sit at the feet of the Lord. So the door was open, but the welcome was thin. No water for his feet. No kiss on his cheek. No oil for his head. The social courtesies that any proper host would extend to a respected rabbi — Simon withheld every one of them.

Then she came. A woman in the city who was a sinner. The text does not say what kind of sinner. The town knew. That is how "a woman in the city who was a sinner" reads in the mouth of the Pharisees — it is a label, not a description. She came in carrying an alabaster box of ointment, and she stood at his feet behind him, weeping, and began to wash his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment (Luke 7:37–38). She did not say a word. Her worship was her whole body. Her repentance was her whole posture.

And Simon — the host, the scholar, the man who had not offered water for the feet — looked at Jesus and said, in the polite theological language of the day, "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner." In other words: If you were who you say you are, you would not let her touch you.

That is the moment where the two sides of love meet. Simon knew about love. Simon could define it. Simon could preach it. But Simon had never been the one on the floor. The woman had. And the woman, on the floor, was closer to the Lord than the host on the cushion. That is the first side of love — the side where mercy runs down and hits the one who stopped pretending to be clean enough to receive it.

Side Two — The mercy that went out

Now read the second scene. Matthew 18. Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?" Peter thought he was being extravagant. Seven times. That was a generous answer for a first-century rabbi. Jesus said: not seven times, but seventy times seven. In other words — don't count. In other words — the number is the size of the sky because the forgiveness is the size of the cross.

And to make sure Peter understood, Jesus told him a parable. A king settled accounts with his servants. One servant owed him ten thousand talents — a debt so large it could never be repaid in a hundred lifetimes. The king, moved with compassion, forgave him the whole debt. "Loose him, and let him go." Full pardon. Full release. The mercy ran down.

And then that same servant — the one whose unpayable debt had just been wiped clean — walked out of the king's presence and found a fellow servant who owed him a hundred pence. A hundred days' wages. A real debt. A small debt. A debt he could have carried. And the forgiven servant grabbed his brother by the throat and said, "Pay me that thou owest." The mercy ran down on him. And it stopped on the floor.

That is the second side of love. The side where we have been forgiven the unpayable debt, and now we are asked to carry the small debt of the brother sitting across from us. And this is where the test is not in the worship room. The test is in the parking lot. In the kitchen. In the group chat. In the meeting. In the relative. In the ex. In the parole officer. In the brother who owes you a hundred pence. The test of forgiveness is not how you wept at the altar. The test of forgiveness is how you treat the brother when the song has ended and the parking lot is the only witness left.

The king asked the question that should live in the throat of every person who has ever called themselves saved. Shouldest not thou also have had compassion? The answer the king expected was not "maybe." The answer the king expected was not "eventually." The answer was: yes — and immediately, and at the same scale, and in the same posture. Because the mercy that was not too large to cover your ten thousand talents is not too small to cover your brother's hundred pence.

The wall between the two sides

Now I want to press the harder question. What is the wall between the two sides of love? It is not anger. Anger is a flame that can be tended or starved. The wall is self. It is the quiet, settled belief that what was extended to me was for me — and what was extended to me is not necessarily for the brother next to me. The wall is the refusal to believe that the mercy that ran down on me is supposed to run through me.

Self keeps the two sides apart. Self says, "My sins were different." Self says, "My case was special." Self says, "I have changed." Self says, "He hasn't, and so I do not have to forgive him." And every sentence of self is a wall built with the bricks of the ten thousand talents that have already been wiped clean.

That is why John wrote, near the end of his letter, "He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now" (1 John 2:9). And that is why he also wrote the verse that sits at the bottom of the whole question: "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love" (1 John 4:18). Perfect love — the love that has received the ten thousand talents and is now extending the hundred pence — perfect love casts out fear. Fear is what self builds the wall with. And the wall has to come down.

1. The wall comes down at the feet

The first side of love is the side where you stop pretending you are too clean to need the floor. Sinner is not a word the woman denied. Sinner was a word she answered with her tears. She did not try to defend her reputation. She did not try to argue with Simon's theology. She did not try to prove she had changed. She knelt. And the kneeling was the whole sermon.

That is what repentance looks like when it is real. Repentance is not the cover story. Repentance is the woman on the floor, washing feet, with her tears and the ointment and the hair of her head — and not saying one word in her own defense. Repentance is not a polished testimony. Repentance is a posture.

2. The wall comes down in the parking lot

The second side of love is the side where the forgiven man walks out of the king's presence and refuses to grab his brother by the throat. That is the harder side for most of us. The altar is easier than the parking lot. The worship song is easier than the text message. The pew is easier than the kitchen table. But the wall between the two sides of love is exactly the distance between the altar and the parking lot — and that is the distance that has to close.

I have sat with men in this city who could weep in a worship service and then walk out and refuse to speak to a brother they had quarreled with for fifteen years. That is not two sides of love. That is one side of love being performed for an audience, and the other side being withheld for very practical reasons. And the king, in the parable, did not ask the forgiven servant whether he felt like forgiving. The king told the forgiven servant what the expectation was.

3. The wall comes down with seventy times seven

And the number matters. Jesus did not say, "Forgive once, and then assess." He did not say, "Forgive three times, and then defend yourself." He did not say, "Forgive seven times, because that is the scriptural standard." He said seventy times seven — a number too large to count and too large to perform. It is a math problem for the kingdom of God: if you are still counting, you are not there yet.

That is the mercy that does not run out. That is the mercy that does not get litigated. That is the mercy that does not become a wall because the brother offended you three times in a row. Seventy times seven is the size of the love that Jesus prayed would come down on him from the cross — sized as forgiveness for the world — and that is the size of the love He asks us to pour out on the brother who sits across from us at dinner tonight.

Why this letter, why now

Living Testimony News is our monthly Bible study letter — short pastoral words sent into the inboxes of people walking through recovery, reentry, and the slow work of letting God rebuild what was broken. Each edition takes one or two anchor scriptures and opens them up for the road you are on this month.

This letter is built on Luke 7:47 and Matthew 18:33. "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much." "Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?" Two sides of the same love. The side where the mercy runs down. The side where the mercy runs through. The two halves that, together, are the whole picture.

If you would like to walk through the rest of the series, you can read every edition of Living Testimony News here.

If you have been weeping at the feet for years and have been refusing to extend the hundred pence in the parking lot — the wall has to come down. Not because the brother deserves it. Because the king already wiped clean the ten thousand talents, and the king is asking the question: shouldest not thou also? And the answer is yes.

And if you have been the one on the floor for years — weeping, kissing, anointing — and no one has come to wash your feet in return — please hear this: the mercy that ran down on you is not finished. The woman in the city was known for the wrong kind of love, and the Lord Jesus called what she was doing at his feet the right kind of love. The wall does not define you. The tears at his feet do. The two sides of love run down and run through, and you are not outside of either one of them.

Brothers and sisters — let the mercy come down. Let the mercy run through. And do not let the wall stand between the two.