NOTES for Luk 7:36-50
All the biblical books tell us about two spiritual paths: the path of righteousness, leading to life, and the path of sin, leading to death. And now, when the Messiah has come, it suddenly turns out that the situation is not so unambiguous, that not every sinner is walking the path of sin and not every righteous person stands on the path of righteousness as firmly as he thinks.
Yet if we think about it, there is nothing surprising here: after all, there are no absolute righteous people in the world, completely untouched by sin, except Christ. Therefore righteousness by definition is only a relative state, one that depends on the fullness and intensity of communion with God available to the righteous person. Righteousness is like breathing: it is not static; if communion with God ceases, it disappears, just as breath disappears from someone who has stopped breathing.
And then it turns out that a repentant sinner is closer to righteousness than an imaginary righteous person who contemplates his own righteousness and judges others. Indeed, in order to repent, in order to ask forgiveness for the sin committed, one must at least turn to God, and therefore establish with Him those very relationships without which there is no righteousness. And then one can consider the matter done, for God needs only to establish relationships with us; after that He will find the way and the possibility to solve all our problems. It is enough for Him simply to enter our heart, and here it no longer matters what becomes the reason for our openness to Him. Even if the reason was regret over a sin committed and repentance for it, He will find how to do in our heart the spiritual work that we need for our salvation.