Toward understanding Luke 7:47

“Her sins, which are many, are forgiven her, for she loved much” (Luke 7:47). From the context, and especially from the preceding parable of the debtors, it is clear that this must mean: “The greatness of her love for Me is evidence of the greatness of the sins I have forgiven her.” (The for here is like the for in “He can’t have gone out, for his hat is still hanging in the hall”; the presence of the hat is not the cause of his being in the house but a probable proof that he is). But thousands of people take it quite differently.
C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (1960; Harcourt Brace: 1991) 111.