Who is Without Sin?

Intro

Have you ever met someone that is so bad at the job that they have that you’re left wondering how they ever got it? 0 qualifications, 0 knowhow, yet always there doing the work. Now, don’t you go start thinking about people you used to work with or people you used to work for. I am confident that we’ve all been around people like that where we’re just waiting for them to get fired and somehow it never happens. Now, if you’ve been here for at least one Sunday before, you’ve probably gotten to know that my wife is a very talented baker. It isn’t her only skill, but it is probably the skill she practices the most and is thankfully good at. You ever meet someone that loves to bake and just doesn’t have it? Now, one skillset that isn’t so strong for Courtney is driving. It’s fine, she’s not here today, I can talk about this openly in this safe space. She’s the late breaker type; the kind of person that would drive a backseat driver crazy while they’re already trying to drive the driver crazy. Whenever we go anywhere, I am the one that drives, even if it means driving for several hours straight. I honestly don’t mind it, and in all reality prefer to drive long distances regardless of what other driver might be available. Anyway, this is another skill that she practices often, but it kinda just never gets to where it needs to be. I’m sure we all know some bad drivers. Now take one of those bad drivers and put them on a Nascar track and see how they do. 200mph for 2-3 hours straight. Surely they will not survive. I’m not saying that Courtney would do poorly on a Nascar track, I am saying plainly that she will end up dead. She just doesn’t have the skillset, qualifications, or authority to take up that job.

As we come to our text, we see the Pharisees stepping outside of their qualifications. As far as the law is concerned, what they said is correct. This woman is guilty and the law makes plain the punishment. As students and teachers of the Word of God, they were qualified to judge, according to the law, that which is right and wrong. But they overstepped into authority that was not there. They were ready to deliver the condemnation. They were ready to deliver the final judgement and issue the punishment. But they weren’t qualified to give the final say.

What the text is not telling us...

Now, before we dive too deep into the text, I first want to cover something important, and that is what the text is not telling us. Often times we can come to this text and understand something about that simply isn’t here, and that is the idea that we are taught not to judge. We come to the text, we see how Jesus’ addresses the crowd and addresses this woman, and come to a conclusion that because Jesus did not condemn that we should not judge at all. We will get to the difference between the two in a bit. We can also look at what Jesus says to the crowd and misinterpret it. It may look as though He saying, “well, because you have also sinned, then you can’t judge anyone for having sinned”, but that’s not what He is saying either. We will also get to what He is saying shortly.

So we will spend some time in the text drawing these things out, but I wanted to help us away from misunderstanding here at the beginning. Scripture calls followers of Christ to judge, but not to condemn, and this text is not telling us to not judge, and is not telling us that Christ does not Himself judge either.

Before we get to that though, I want us to consider in these first few verses the behavior of the Pharisees and scribes and how they address sin; seemingly by sweeping it under the rug.

Sweeping sin under the rug

Of course, we see them dragging this woman out into public, so what do I mean by talking about sweeping sin under the rug? Well, let’s read these first few verses again and see what sticks out. Let’s read one thru five.

John 8:1–5 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. “Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?”

Notice anything missing here? The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery and set her in the center of the court. You know the saying, “it takes two to tango”? Well, it usually takes two to commit adultery. Where is the man in this scenario? Why hasn’t he been brought out before the court as well?

There could be a couple options of what took place here. Had the man already left before they got there? Well, if he had, then how would they know that this woman had committed adultery? Since the whole purpose of bringing her out was to trap Jesus, did they set this woman up by sending a man to her? That still doesn’t answer the question of where the man is, but it does kind of lead us to what I think the issue here is. I think that they knew the man they she had committed adultery with. I think it was a friend of theirs, or at the very least someone that they didn’t want to bring to shame. Now, the text doesn’t tell us this, so I can’t tell you that this is true, it’s simply my theory. But think about it. Imagine that you caught someone you loved in a terrible sin. A sin that would not only greatly impact their life, but maybe even beyond their lives and the lives of others. What would you do? Let’s be honest for a second. For most of us, our initial thought might be to figure out a way to keep it secret. It might be something that is embarrassing to us and we just don’t want people to know about it. Or maybe we just see the potential in that person and we don’t want to mess it up for them. Whatever it may be, we must make sure that we take sin seriously and don’t sweep it under the rug. It only grows there. And at the end of the day, the gospel message is far more important than anyone’s feelings. That sin is just going to grow there under that rug and more people are going to be hurt because of it. And that sin won’t go away, but will be brought to light as Jesus says here in Luke:

Luke 8:17 “For nothing is hidden that will not become evident, nor anything secret that will not be known and come to light.”

Coming back to the text, we’re left with the question, where was the man in this situation? He would be guilty and deserving of punishment just the same as this woman, as it is written in the Law of God:

Leviticus 20:10 If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

I think it’s either option two or option three - they either used this woman as a pawn so they could try and trap Jesus, or there was a more random case of adultery, but they didn’t want to impact his reputation - they didn’t care about hers. They were either sweeping the man’s sin under the rug, or they simply just didn’t care what happened to this woman because she was a woman.

As we consider the rest of this text, let’s agree to this: let’s callout sin where we see it, even if it hurts to do it. The only freedom from pain is freedom from sin.

He Who is Without Sin

John 8:6–9 They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court.

The whole purpose of dragging this woman out wasn’t to punish her according to the Law, but to see if they could get Jesus to break it. They figured Jesus had two options - first, he could join them in condemning the woman. As we just read in Leviticus, it was correct according to the law to put this woman (and the man who was somehow not there) to death. Jesus would’ve been in the right according to the law…but what would happen to the people following Him? What would happen to His message of grace, mercy and hope for the people? They’d probably be afraid of ever slipping up and failing to uphold the law. The other option? Jesus shows such a deep compassion that he nullifies the law. Well, that wouldn’t work because He would then lean right into the trap that the Pharisees had been trying His whole ministry to catch Him in. They didn’t believe Him to be God and they believed His message to be blasphemy, so if He said that things should not be done according to the law, then it would put an end to every claim Jesus had and He would be put to death for blasphemy. This was a rock and a hard place - well, that’s what the Pharisees thought it was, but Jesus had it all figured out.

The issue at hand wasn’t this particular sin, but sin in general. Jesus stands up, looks at the people, and tells them that whoever has lived a perfect life according to the law would have the right to carry out the law before the people and put the woman to death. They thought Jesus had two choices, but He took a third route and now they are stuck with one of three options:

First, they could just stone her anyway in spite of any guilt on their conscience. Given that at least publicly these would be pious rule following men, that would be unlikely to happen.

Second, they could claim that they have no sin, and then move forward. Remember what happened with the woman at the well? She gave Jesus a half-truth, trying to conceal her sinful life, and what did Jesus do? He called out her sin specifically. Now, these men might not have known that was possible, but I can imagine they wouldn’t take this route regardless for fear that their sin could actually come to light.

Third, the route they took - walk away. Whether it’s because they realized their own sin or just figured this to be a losing battle, surprised by Jesus’ response, the best route was to just walk away. Nobody there was without sin.

No one is without sin; only Jesus. We talked about this a bit last week. What does Scripture tell us?

Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

I think we often find ourselves choosing one of two positions - either we are armed and at the ready to cast stones, or we are unwilling to even address the situation. We will get to where we should be in a minute here, but let’s think about where we might be at right now. How often to we get riled up over someone else’s sin? How often to we just ignore sin because “it’s not that bad”? We’ve probably all landed in both camps at some time or another. Sometimes we end up playing a comparison game. We cast stones at sin worse than ours, but we become passive toward sin that isn’t as bad, perhaps because we don’t want our own sin to be known. We can neither cast stones, nor can we be passive. So what should we do?

Judgment vs. Condemnation

John 8:10–11 Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.”

Look at Jesus’ response. He begins by asking her a simple question - who is left to condemn you to death? Everyone left. The sinners could not condemn someone else to death for their sin. Then three things happen in Jesus’ response that we should not only understand, but also emulate.

First, He tells her that He doesn’t condemn her either. This is where we get significant misunderstanding with this passage. Scripture makes plain that Jesus is coming back to judge, and that He will judge between the righteous and the unrighteous, and those found to be unrighteous will be condemned to eternal separation from God. People look at Jesus’ response and misunderstand it to mean that Jesus does not take a stand against unrighteousness, regardless of the sin, but we know that Jesus does. He is against evil, and teaches against it as well. But the time of condemnation had not come yet for this woman - He gave her a second chance, but it came with conditions. Jesus is doing what he does to all repentant sinners: giving them a chance to start again, calling them to change, with no need for them to be condemned for what is condemnable because of his death for sins on the cross. Now this takes us to the other two things in Jesus’ response.

He addresses her actions as sinful, and He commands her to leave that life of sin behind.

Well now we have a bit of a problem. What did I say this verse wasn’t teaching us? It’s not teaching us that we should never judge, yet that is an incredibly common interpretation of what’s happening. What does Jesus do here? He judges her action as sinful, and He judges her as needing to live no longer in sin.

There is a difference between judgement and condemnation.

In condemnation, it is handing down a particular punishment according to the offence. We can also look at that and see it as a form of judgement in the sense of a final determination not of what is taking place, but what is being done in response. When a judge issues punishment to fit the crime, he is issuing a final judgement that results in the condemnation of the one receiving it. Since we are not the judge, we have no right or authority to condemn or the hand out final judgement. However.

When we think of judgement and our role, while we may not have the authority to condemn, we do have the where-with-all to look at a situation and to determine what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong. Pick an issue in the world today, I am sure you have an opinion on it. If we see a thief run from a store, we can call out to them and say that what they are doing is wrong, but we cannot execute the punishment that they receive for doing wrong.

We are not the authors of the Law, so we can not condemn anyone according to it, because we ourselves are condemned under the Law. We’ve got no footing to cast the stone. However, we are to judge rightly between what is right and what is wrong. Jesus just said in chapter 7 that we are to “judge with righteous judgement”. And yes, He also says to judge not or else be judged, that we will be judged in the same way that we issue judgement, and that we should not focus on the speck in our brother’s eye while also ignoring the log in our own. But we are also supposed to know right from wrong, and we are supposed to call sin sin, both in our lives and in that of others.

Galatians 6:1 Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.

While Paul is writing to believers in reference to other believers, we see here in John that Jesus is playing this very thing out with someone who is not a believer. With a spirit of gentleness, He points out her sin and calls her to a better life.

It’s not a matter of condemning anyone. It’s not going out and picketing with signs that tell people that they are going to hell. It is, with knowledge of our own sin and unrighteousness, which we put to death through our own sanctification process, communicating with love and gentleness what is right according to the Word of God, that sin is sin and Jesus calls all of us to go and sin no more.

Bruce Milne says it like this: The sword of judgment is double-edged. In judging others we judge ourselves, and an unwillingness to pronounce judgment on ourselves undercuts our right to pronounce it on others. Put more generally, God’s call to all of us, all of the time, is to live holy, godly lives. Any deviation from that should concern us, as much in ourselves as in others.

We cannot judge the sin of another ignorant of our own sin, but we should call others to new life in Christ just as we call ourselves and are called to that new life as well.

When we see someone in sin, we should not immediately think to ourselves, “oh, that person is going to hell.” That would be condemnation. What we should think, and act on, is “oh, that person is destined for the wrath that I was once destined for if they do not change their path and believe on Jesus. I should tell them that there is hope for them too.”

The church should look like Jesus. The world around us wants the church to look and act like Jesus. The world needs us to be like Jesus. But we often run into this problem where the world thinks that Jesus came to teach what we could get away with and what He would let slide. But in every moment of addressing sin, Jesus could not be any more clear. What you’re doing is sin, go and don’t sin anymore. This is the message we bring. Condemnation is coming is accordance with the Law of God, not according to our sense of justice. But we need to judge what is right and good according to Word of God and call it out where it is not.