Transcript

One author wrote this: They marched her through the narrow streets. Dogs yelped. Roosters ran. Women leaned out their windows. Mothers snatched children off the path. Merchants peered out the doors of their shops.

Jerusalem became a jury and rendered its verdict with glares and crossed arms. And as if the parade of shame were inadequate, the men thrust her into the middle of a morning Bible class being taught by Christ in the Temple.

“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the very act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”

Stunned students stood on one side of her. Pious plaintiffs on the other. The woman had no exit. Deny the accusation? She had been caught. Plead for mercy? To whom? The Pharisees were squeezing stones and snarling. No one would speak for her.

But someone would stoop for her. Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust John 8 says. We might expect Him to stand up, step forward, or even ascend a stair and speak.

But instead He leaned over. He descended lower than anyone else, beneath the scribes, the Pharisees, the people in the crowd, even beneath the woman. The accusers looked down on the woman. To see Jesus, they had to look down even farther.

He’s prone to stoop. He stooped to wash feet, to embrace children. Stooped to pull Peter out of the sea, to pray in the garden. He stooped before the Roman whipping post. He stooped to carry the cross. God is a God who stoops in His grace.

John 8:1-2: “Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.”

The events of John 8 take place right after a week long feast of tabernacles in Jerusalem. Following the feast, the last verse of chapter 7 reads, “And every man went unto his own house.”

But as for our Savior, as Luke 9:58 says, “And Jesus said…Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head.”

And so in contrast to those who went to their homes, following the feast Christ went up unto the Mount of Olives verse 1 says. But this wasn’t something uncommon for the Lord either when He was in Jerusalem during His earthly ministry.

Luke 21:37 says, “And in the day time He was teaching in the temple; and at night He went out, and abode in the mount that is called the mount of Olives.”

The Mount of Olives is a long, north-south ridge that overlooks the Temple east of Jerusalem, and actually covers the whole eastern side of the old city.

It is the place from which Christ ascended into heaven, and it is the place where His feet will stand when He comes at His Second Coming to Israel at the Battle of Armageddon.

Christ slept the night on the Mount of Olives and then “early in the morning,” or literally “at daybreak,” He came down the side of the mount, crossed the Kidron Valley, and walked back up the hill into the city, then into the Temple and its courts.

Verse 20 tells us He was “in the treasury” section of the temple. The treasury was where the collection boxes were located for the giving of the offerings and temple tax by the people. It was where the Lord later observed the widow sacrificially giving her 2 mites.

And the “treasury” was part of the court of the women in the Temple.

It’s said of this court that “The Court of the Women, so called, not because it was appropriated to the worship of women exclusively, but because women were not allowed to proceed further, except for sacrificial purposes.”

It was a very public part of the temple and it’s ironic that the Lord was here given what is about to unfold with the WOMAN caught in adultery.

Verse 2 states that Christ came “again” to the temple as He had been doing during the feast of tabernacles. And He came “early in the morning,” or at daybreak.

Our Lord liked to rise early. In Mark 1:35 it speaks of Him “rising up a great while before day” to go out and pray. Luke 21:38 says, “And all the people came early in the morning to Him in the temple, for to hear Him.”

Here we find also at daybreak how He went to the temple, and a crowd of people came to Him at this early hour.

And the custom and usual practice for teachers at that time was to “sit down” to teach, which we see our Lord do here. Also, in Matthew 26:55, the Lord said, “I SAT daily with you TEACHING in the temple.” The teacher would sit and the people gathered around.

John 8:3-6: “And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.

“Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting Him, that they might have to accuse Him.”

Knowing Christ’s practice of coming early to the temple to teach, the “scribes and Pharisees” lay a trap that they might have cause “to accuse Him” (v. 6).

Because of their unbelief and hatred of Christ, they tried to trap Him in His words with a question that He couldn’t extricate Himself from; and, therefore, discredit Himself before the people. They were trying to get Him to say something wrong so they would have some charge to bring against Him.

And they thought they developed the ultimate trap this time.

These Jewish leaders bring a woman to Him who was caught in adultery. She does not come willingly of her own accord, but is “brought,” or forced, pulled along. They drag her and her secret sin out into the streets, and drag her to Christ in the Temple.

And they force their way into the center of the group, interrupt Christ’s teaching and shove her into the midst so she could be seen by all present.

As she stood there before Christ and the crowd, the Jewish leaders publicly accuse her of being caught in the very act of adultery, thus breaking the 7th commandment.

The leaders use this situation and are anxious to make their case. They are acting in a holy, indignant, self-righteous manner, seemingly furious about this sin against God, when they could have cared less.

With an apparent zeal and a false desire to administer the Law of Moses, they present the dilemma, when in truth they were only seeking to trap the Lord.

There is no question about her guilt. The accusation they make is according to the Law of Moses: she has committed adultery and she should be stoned. And they ask Him, “What do you say?”

In other words, are you going to say something different or against this clear commandment of God? But they are conveniently not telling the whole story here and what the Law completely says.

Leviticus 20:10 states, “And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, THE ADULTERER AND THE ADULTERESS SHALL SURELY BE PUT TO DEATH.”

Deuteronomy 22:22,24 says, “If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall BOTH OF THEM die, BOTH THE MAN that lay with the woman, AND THE WOMAN: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel. Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die.”

In their accusation, they were right about what the law says about an adulteress, that she should be stoned. But the law also required that both parties die.

So the question is: where is the man? Why didn’t they bring him?

And the likely possibility was that he was part of the scheme to trap her so they could bring this case before Christ. Because how else would these “morality police” have known just when to barge in and catch the woman?

The entire situation is suspicious and reeks of a set-up: with the leaders being up so early, the woman caught in the very act, and with the man not being brought along.

Verse 6 states that they were “tempting,” or testing Him that they might accuse Him.

This all goes back to the religious leaders being upset at people believing in the Lord as Israel’s Messiah, so they confronted Him with a difficult situation to see if they could make Christ oppose Moses or not show compassion and cause people to abandon Him.

In their carefully laid plan, they were seeking to test and accuse the Lord because if He said “Don’t stone her,” they would’ve accused Him saying, “See! He is not of God, for He defies Moses’ law, and we all know that God gave Moses the law.”

They were actually pitting Christ against Moses, and if Christ said to not stone her, He was contradicting and opposing the Law, denying its authority, and condoning sin, and His credibility as a teacher of the law would be gone. They hoped for this answer.

On the other hand, if He said, “Stone her,” His reputation for forgiveness, compassion, grace and being a friend of sinners would have been questioned.

And also if He said “Stone her,” He would have been violating Roman law. Because if He advocated her death, He would be going against Rome’s policy which did not permit the Jews to execute a death sentence.

When the Jews later brought Christ before Pilate and wanted Him to be put to death, Pilate told them in John 18:31: “Take ye Him, and judge Him according to your law. The Jews therefore said unto him, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death.”

So if Christ said to stone her, He could’ve been reported to the Romans as inciting the people to exercise the death penalty apart from and independent of the Romans.

Thus, the accusations they were prepared to make based on Christ’s response was: (1) if He let the woman go free, He would be opposing the Law of Moses. (2) If He condemned the woman to death, they would accuse Him of being an enemy of the Roman government, (3) and they’d also accuse Him of not being merciful and compassionate.

Either way He answered He’d face accusation and charges under Roman or the Mosaic Law. If Christ didn’t condemn the women, He would break the Jewish law. If He did condemn her, He would break the Roman law. The trap is set. They thought they were putting the Lord “between a rock and a hard place.”

But Christ is God. He is the truth and all-wise. And it’s actually impossible to put God in a difficult situation. Nothing is too hard for Him.

John 8:6-9: “But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.

“So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.

“And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.”

A young couple moved into a new neighborhood. The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside.

“That laundry is not very clean,” she said. “She doesn’t know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap. Or she needs to take more time.”

Her husband looked on, but didn’t say anything. Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments.

About a month later, the woman was surprised to see nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband: “Look, she has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her?” The husband said, “I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.”

We can be guilty of judging others without seeing our own faults, our own dirty windows. And Christ makes this clear in His response.

Christ knew the religious leaders didn’t come interested in learning from Him, but instead seeking a basis for a charge against Him. The rocks were poised. They were cocked and ready to fire. “What are you gonna do with this woman?” they asked.

He moves the moment away from her to Himself. Christ doesn’t say anything at this point, but instead stooped down and wrote in the dust on the ground.

Being in the temple, writing on the ground meant He was writing in the dust of the pavement. He quietly wrote in that dust with His finger. It’s the only time we read of our Lord writing in His earthly ministry.

First, this diverted the people’s attention from the woman and delayed them in their anger, and gave them time to think. But what was He writing? There’s a lot of ideas.

Deuteronomy 9:10 tells us the Law was written with “the finger of God,” and so it’s been suggested He was writing the 10 commandments and by His action He was reminding them who wrote the law and that it wasn’t Moses’ law it was God’s. And at the same time He was claiming both authorship and authority of the Law of God, as God Himself.

It’s thought that He might’ve written what the Law really says about people being guilty of adultery, correcting their omission of the man and him not being present.

Or He might’ve been writing down names and lists of sins of the accusers standing in front of Him. And that would explain them running off!

He may have been writing four words, which were written by the finger of God in Daniel 5: “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin,” or numbered, numbered, weighed, divided, or “You are weighed in the balance and found wanting.”

In Daniel, because of sin, the kingdom of Babylon was found wanting and then judged by God. And so because of their sins, these leaders were being warned of judgment.

He may have been writing out Deuteronomy 17:7 and demonstrating His command of the Law: “The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So thou shalt put the evil away from among you.”

This is what Christ referred to when He did speak. But as He was writing quietly, the scribes and Pharisees press the issue and kept questioning Him and demanding an answer, an answer they were hoping to use against Him.

Christ then stood up and with authority said, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” And as Warren Wiersbe put it, “Instead of passing judgment on the woman, Jesus passed judgment on the judges.”

Christ shifted the focus off of the woman, then off Himself and then onto the accusers.

Christ stated that the penalty of the law should be carried out, throw the stones, but that it should be done by those who had committed no sin.

Thus the Lord upheld the Law of Moses. He did not say that the woman should be free from the penalty of the law.

But under the law, those who witnessed, accused and testified against one who had broken a law punishable by death, they were to throw the first stone.

As Deuteronomy 17:7 says again, “The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people.”

This was in order that the witness might feel the responsibility in giving evidence against another and take it seriously before he accused someone to bring about their death, that they might be sure and also feel the weight of taking someone’s life.

Christ reached into their hearts and told her accusers if any of them were without sin then they should perform the office of executioner and cast the first stone.

In other words, those who were to carry out the sentence must be without sin, having unstained hands and pure hearts and motives.

Christ in His perfect wisdom, and knowing their thoughts as God, knew her accusers had hateful, sinful motives, were not pure in their concern for the law, but rather were maliciously seeking to trap Christ to get rid of Him.

They were not without sin. They set this trap on purpose. And thus they were not qualified to carry out the execution called for under the Law.

Her accusers were called to judge themselves, rather than this woman, and all knew they were guilty. No one was worthy to cast a stone. They knew their motives. Now, like the woman, the leaders have been caught “in the very act.”

Christ then stooped down and continued writing quietly with His finger on the ground and He just let them fry. Her accusers had been pointing their finger at the woman, but after Christ spoke, “the finger of their conscience” was now pointing at themselves.

And the rocks started hitting the ground: thud…thud…thud… And one by one the accusing mob turned and slowly and silently walked away from the Light, with the darkness of their guilt exposed, their sin reproved, conscience pricked and hearts convicted.

The Jewish leaders thought they had Christ cornered, but it ended up that they were the ones cornered and trapped by their own Law. They were speechless. And as it’s been said “They came as one, but they left one by one.”

And they left in age order. The eldest of the scribes and Pharisees, with longer experience and a greater awareness of sin in their life and more sense than to make an impossible profession of being pure in their intentions, left first, then the rest one by one until the last of them. They were all guilty.

But one stays. The woman. You would think she would have taken off with everybody else with her guilt and embarrassing sin exposed? But she stayed. They were convicted of sin. She was convicted of sin. They walked away from Christ. But she stayed.

John 8:10,11: “When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?

“She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.”

Christ in His response gave honor to the law of Moses, He did not call for the people to break Roman law, He did not condone the woman’s sin, and He showed mercy and love.

Christ stood up after all her accusers had left and tenderly asked her where her accusers were and if no man had condemned her. She answers “No man, Lord.”

She’d been brought to Christ against her will. Now she remained by her will. She remained there with the One who was without sin and able to condemn her as God.

Now that the jury is gone, the woman awaits her verdict. But the One who can condemn her, does not.

What she had done was wrong. It was sin. The leaders’ vicious hatred of Him and desire to murder her was wrong and sinful as well. Christ had made that crystal clear to them. Christ did not condone her sin, and He did not take it lightly. But by His mercy, forgiveness and love, He did not condemn her either.

He did not pronounce judgment on or condemn her because under the law, a sentence of condemnation required two or three witnesses, and this requirement could now not be met, with all of them gone, and thus the law of stoning could not be applied.

There were no accusers. And if there was nobody to accuse her, if nobody wanted to prosecute, the trial was over.

This was a sin that required death. All our sins require death. Romans 6:23 says “the wages of sin is death.” Sin demands the payment of death. Somebody has to die.

The reason that Christ could say “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more” was because He knew full well, that He would die on the cross for her adultery.

This is how Christ could be both just and merciful to her. He knew He would pay for her sin. The reason He could forgive her and show her grace in that moment was because He would bear her sin and die for it. He says “Woman I don’t condemn you,” because in love He would face God’s condemnation against her sins on the Cross.

Christ demonstrated here the truth of John 3:17: “For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”

That woman’s sin wouldn’t go unpunished. It would be placed on Christ, and He would willingly pay the price and die for her adultery and for all her sins.

And He willingly died for all your sins and mine and He took our place. He died for all our sinful thoughts, words, and deeds. He died for every sin you’ve ever committed or will commit.

When we trust Him, He says to you what He said to this woman “I don’t condemn you.” Because He’s paid the price for all our sin. But if you die in your sins, and never trust Christ, then you’ll face the condemnation of God against your sins in the lake of fire forever.

Christ told the woman, “Go, and sin no more,” calling her adultery sin, He calls her to leave her life of sin and to begin a new life.

Having experienced the mercy, love, grace and forgiveness of Christ, out of her gratitude for it, this was to motivate this woman to live a new, obedient, changed life as He called her to do.

The mercy, love, and forgiveness of Christ that we have experienced through the Cross, should motivate us to do the same, out of gratitude for what He’s done for me, to live a new, obedient, transformed life for His glory.

The woman turned and walked into anonymity. She’s never seen or heard from again in Scripture. But could we somehow transport her to Rio de Janeiro and let her stand at the base of the Cristo Redentor, or Christ the Redeemer statue, we know what her response would be.

“That’s not the Jesus I saw,” she would say. For the Jesus she saw didn’t have a hard heart. And the Jesus that saw her didn’t have cold eyes.

However, if we could somehow transport her to Calvary and let her stand at the base of the cross, and have her look up at Him there, we know what she would say. “That’s Him.”