It would take months to explain things written in this chapter. There are two things that I’d like to focus on. One is the woman who prepared for Christ’s burial. And the other is the Lord’s supper.

I already mentioned about Christ’ being anointed with precious oil by a woman (v. 6 – 13). She was the only one who understood the meaning of Christ’s death. Christ must die for the kingdom of God. While the disciples were daydreaming of becoming rulers of the world, this woman understood the meaning of the kingdom and why the King must die. The Holy Spirit gave her the understanding. Christ prophesied that people would talk about her and her deed. But many interpret this passage with wrong understandings. The woman symbolizes the kingdom (the invisible church). She knows she is sinful. She knows that people see her as a sinful woman. Yet, she knows that her Lord has forgiven her and many others who are included in the kingdom. And she knows that the King will pay for the sins of His church once for all and buy His people with the price of His blood. This reminds us of Hosea and his wife, Gomer.

So I purchased her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and a homer and a lethech of barley. (Hosea 3:2)

It is understood that what Hosea paid for his wife was about 30 shekels of silver. And Christ was sold for 30 pieces of silver by the betrayer, Judas.

Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me to betray Him to you?” And they set out for him thirty pieces of silver. (Matthew 26:14-15)

In order to redeem her, Christ was sold for 30 pieces of silver on behalf of her. He paid with His own life. Therefore, anyone who denies that Christ died in substitution to His church must be considered unorthodox. Some say that Aquinas does not support the substitution doctrine. I am not surprised because he knew nothing about God when he was sitting as the teacher of the Roman Catholic church.

One may ask, “How is my sin forgiven? It is my sin. My sin must be paid by myself.” But that is not God’s way. The new covenant promises that our sins will not be remembered.

They will not teach again, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their wrongdoing, and their sin I will no longer remember.(Jeremiah 31:34)

Here we can see that the knowledge of God and the forgiveness of sins go together. And Christ did all. Sins of His people are forgiven and they are given the knowledge of God.

As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, For He will bear their wrongdoings. (Isaiah 53:11)

Even though we did not pay for our sins, the Father sees that our sins are paid and remembers no more of our sins. It is because Christ and His church are united. The Lord’s supper happens before Christ’s death, not after. It is significant because the church must die with Christ in order to resurrect with Him. Therefore, the church is reborn.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. (Romans 6:8)

Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. (Romans 7:4)

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which has been born of the flesh is flesh, and that which has been born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it is coming from and where it is going; so is everyone who has been born of the Spirit.” (John 3:6-8)

One thing to remember regarding the Lord’s supper is that Judas was also invited to the supper and shared bread with Christ. The Lord’s supper is for the visible church but is ultimately only for the invisible church. Many are invited to the wedding but those who do not wear wedding clothes are thrown out. Those who refuse to bear fruit while being attached to the vine will be cut off. Any branch that is not one with the vine is useless.

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. (John 15:1-2)

Although the invisible church is the true kingdom of God, God was pleased to establish an earthly system to nurture His people. Therefore, the visible church system has the authority. However, only those who are chosen by God receive the Holy Spirit and therefore, are truly united with Christ. When the visible church fails to bear fruit, it is denied by God. Only those who receive the Holy Spirit are saved as Lot was saved by escaping Sodom and Gomorrah.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, held for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example of what is coming for the ungodly; and if He rescued righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the perverted conduct of unscrupulous people (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from a trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt passion, and despise authority… (2 Peter 2:4-10)

Problems rise when a visible church thinks she has paid for her sins by her own hands. She loses the authority of God. She can no longer feed God’s people. God’s people then cry out because of hunger and thirst. And their prayers to God bring disasters to the world that denies God of His words. Those churches who are one with the world will not escape God’s wrath.

The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake. (Revelation 8:4-5)