Untitled Sermon (10)

Barclay

Adultery was, in fact, one of the three gravest sins and was punishable by death, although there were certain differences in respect of the way in which the death penalty was to be carried out.

Jesus said in effect: ‘All right! Stone her! But let anyone among you that is without sin be the first to cast a stone.’ It may well be that the word for without sin (anamartētos) means not only without sin, but even without a sinful desire.

This passage shows us two things about the attitude of the scribes and the Pharisees.

(1) It shows us their conception of authority.

It is clear that to them authority was characteristically critical, censorious and condemnatory.

(2) This incident shows vividly and cruelly the attitude of the scribes and Pharisees to people.

They were not looking on this woman as a person at all; they were looking on her only as a thing, an instrument whereby they could formulate a charge against Jesus. They were using her, as a person might use a tool, for their own purposes. To them she had no name, no personality, no feelings; she was simply a pawn in the game whereby they sought to destroy Jesus.

It is extremely unlikely that the scribes and the Pharisees even knew this woman’s name. To them she was nothing but a case of shameless adultery that could now be used as an instrument to suit their purposes. The minute people become things, the spirit of Christianity is dead.

Jesus and his attitude to the sinner.

(1) It was a first principle of Jesus that only those who are themselves without fault have the right to express judgment on the fault of others.

(2) Jesus that our first emotion towards anyone who has made a mistake should be pity.

(3) how Jesus did treat this woman.

(a) It involved the second chance.

(b) It involved pity.

(c) It involved challenge.

(d) It involved belief in human nature.

(e) It involved warning,

Stott

It has been shown that the word for ‘adultery’ here implied that she was a married woman.

To refuse to uphold the stoning would clearly confirm the authorities’ suspicions, already aroused by matters like his attitude to the Sabbath, that Jesus stood light to the law.

On the other hand, his compassion for the downtrodden and the lawless is known. A hard-line judgment in this case would have discredited him in the eyes of the common people.

By this reply, however, Jesus is not standing lightly to the law. He is in effect giving his permission for the stoning to begin, though only under valid moral conditions.

Here is the miracle of the grace of God. There is no greater wonder than this. The turning of water into wine, the healing of a dying lad by a word, the feeding of five thousand and more with a snack lunch, the walking on a storm-tossed sea; none of these, nor all of them together, compares with this, that Jesus said neither do I condemn you. In this sentence, and in the heart of mercy which lay behind it, is all our hope and all our salvation for ever.

To be able to say neither do I condemn you cost Jesus the hell of Calvary.

Osborne

In an act of wanton cruelty, they have held her incommunicado throughout the night without a trial, and they are using her shame to set a trap for Jesus. Their lack of concern for the woman is quite evident.

Jesus, not the woman, was actually on trial, and justice was not a part of the scene.

If he said too little, they could accuse him of being ignorant of the law. If he said too much, they could accuse him before the Romans, who did not allow the Jews to execute people.

Augustine argued that it was (“Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust”); Jerome, that it was the sins of the accusers. Or perhaps it was the sentence Jesus would deliver (the Romans would write down a sentence and then read it aloud). We cannot know for certain.

She was clearly guilty, and her life of sin had to end with this experience of God’s forgiveness.

So there are two messages here, the judgment heaped on those who are unforgiving and unrepentant and the forgiveness available to those who will stand before God with heads bowed and seek his mercy.

A third message is also critical—when we are forgiven we are responsible before God to change our sinful ways and live righteous lives from that point on.

Calvin

v3

But it would be uncharacteristic of Christ to agree with this law.

v7

This was in line with the normal law, for God commanded that the witnesses should put law-breakers and evil-doers to death with their own hands, so that very great care would be shown in bearing witness

But Christ is demanding perfect innocence from the witnesses, so that no man may take it upon himself to avenge a crime in another unless he himself is pure and free from all guilt.

v9

We should be so affected by God’s judgment that we shall not look for hiding-places to flee from the presence of the Judge but will go straight to him to ask his forgiveness.

v11

It does not say that Christ only absolved the woman, but that he let her go free.

“Leave your life of sin.” From this we deduce what the aim of Christ’s grace is: when the sinner is reconciled to God, he may honor the author of his salvation through a godly and holy life.

Carson

These verses are present in most of the medieval Greek miniscule manuscripts, but they are absent from virtually all early Greek manuscripts that have come down to us, representing great diversity of textual traditions.

All the early church Fathers omit this narrative: in commenting on John, they pass immediately from to . No Eastern Father cites the passage before the tenth century.

Finally, even if someone should decide that the material is authentic, it would be very difficult to justify the view that the material is authentically Johannine: there are numerous expressions and constructions that are found nowhere in John, but which are characteristic of the Synoptic Gospels, Luke in particular (cf. notes, below).

v3-4

Adultery is not a sin one commits in splendid isolation: one wonders why the man was not brought with her. Either he was fleeter of foot than she, and escaped, leaving her to face hostile accusers on her own; or the accusers themselves were sufficiently chauvinistic to focus exclusively on the woman.

v5-6a

If Jesus disavowed the law of Moses, his credibility would be instantly undermined: he could be dismissed as a lawless person and perhaps be charged in the courts with serious offences. If he upheld the law of Moses, he would not only be supporting a position that was largely unpopular but one that was probably not carried out in public life, and, worse, which would have been hard to square with his well-known compassion for the broken and disreputable, his quickness to forgive and restore, and his announcement of the life-transforming power bound up with the new birth.

v6b-8

A longstanding interpretation in the church has been that he wrote part of :

This is a direct reference to ; (cf. )—the witnesses of the crime must be the first to throw the stones, and they must not be participants in the crime itself.

v9

Those who had come to shame Jesus now leave in shame.

v10-11

Regardless of the exigencies of the law of Moses, in this instance Jesus says neither do I condemn you. The confidence and personal absoluteness of Jesus’ words not only call to mind that Jesus came not to condemn but to save (; ), but prompt us to remember the Synoptic accounts that assign Jesus, like God himself, the right to forgive sin ( par.). The proper response to mercy received on account of past sins is purity in the future. niv’s leave your life of sin establishes the point directly, even if the expression almost paints the woman as an habitual whore (though the Greek bears no such overtones).

Boice

The problem of the story is how justice and mercy can be harmonized while, at the same time, neither encouraging sin nor condemning the sinner.

I am willing to deal with the story as genuine—though perhaps not a part of the original Gospel as John wrote it—for the following reasons:

1. While it is true that most early manuscripts omit this story, it also is true that the story itself is old, regardless of who wrote it or whether or not it was originally in John’s Gospel.

2. A good case can be made for its inclusion at this particular place in John’s Gospel.

3. Third, there is an excellent reason why the story may have been omitted in the early manuscripts.

4. The fourth and last reason for dealing with the section is the feeling, which many have had, that this story is indeed true to Christ’s nature, in accord at every point with his perfect holiness, wisdom, and deep compassion.

Sin Horror

First, the story reveals sin’s horror. And, of course, I do not mean the sin of the woman. I mean the sin of the rulers. Adultery is sin, certainly. The woman was guilty of adultery. But compared to the sin of the men who were using her in an attempt to trap Jesus, her sin was minimal.

Under Jewish law, as it was practiced by the rabbis in the time of Christ and later, it was necessary to have multiple witnesses to the act of intercourse before the charge of adultery could be substantiated, and even this was to be under the most exacting of circumstances

God of Circumstances

It was not this way with this problem of the adulterous woman. In this case three important matters were at stake:

(1) the life of the woman

(2) the teaching of Jesus about the compassionate nature of his kingdom

(3) the divinely given law of Moses.

How can God show love to the sinner without being unjust?

—“O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust.”

Words to the Sinner

It was because of the cross upon which he was about to bear the full penalty of God’s wrath against every sin ever committed by those whom the Father had given to him. He did not give forgiveness easily. He did so only because he was about to make forgiveness possible by the act of suffering in place of the sinner. This is the gospel. This is the only solution to the problem of how God can remain just and also excuse the sinner. To us, salvation is free. But it is free only because the Son of God paid the price for us.

“I forgive you on the basis of my death. Now, because you are forgiven, stop sinning.”

Sproul

An Adulteress Apprehened

The scribes were the Jewish theologians. They were sometimes called “lawyers” because they were the experts in interpreting the Old Testament law. In other words, “scribe” was a career. By contrast, the Pharisees constituted a party, a movement of conservative religious practice. The term Pharisee means “separated one.”

If Jesus were to say, “Stone the woman,” they would run to the Roman headquarters and say, “This teacher is advocating that we exercise capital punishment without going through the Roman system.” That way they would get Jesus in trouble with the Romans. But if He were to say, “Don’t stone her,” they would run back to the Sanhedrin and say, “This Jesus is a heretic because He denies the law of Moses.” No matter how Jesus answered the question, He would be in serious trouble.

Notice that Jesus did not hedge between the Jewish law and the Roman law. He sided with Moses. He gave His verdict—the woman was guilty and should be stoned. But He then examined the executioners and found them lacking. Only He met the qualifications that He Himself had given for carrying out the execution.

It is significant that she called Jesus “Lord.” The Greek word used there is kurios. This word has a wide range of possible meanings. She may have been simply saying, “No one, sir,” because the lowest form of kurios is the polite form of address for a man. Or, by the grace of God, her eyes may have been opened to understand that she was in the presence of her redeeming Lord.

If you can’t relate to those words, then your heart has been hardened, because each one of us comes to God like this woman, guilty, ashamed, naked, and exposed. But Christ clothes us with the cloak of His righteousness, covering our nakedness and shame, and says to us, “Neither do I condemn you.”

Fredrikson

it is a lovely witness to Jesus’ caring love for one lonely, frightened sinner.

According to the law, this could mean her death (; ).

The Pharisees push Jesus to pronounce the final word of judgment, a clever trap, for they surely know of Jesus’ compassion for the weak and sinful. So if He said, “Let her go,” they could accuse Him of breaking Moses’ Law. But if He gave them permission to stone her, He would break the Roman law which did not allow death for anyone without their approval.

A group of proud, righteous men now find themselves on the same ground as the woman they are about to stone.

Their pious armor has been pierced as each one faces the depths of his own sinful nature. Each has to deal with the inner darkness which is so closely intertwined with self-righteous legalism—the savage delight in catching this woman in the act of sinning, the pompous pride in being able to use her as a shameful test case, or the vengeful anger which drives them to get at Jesus. Are not these the ugly passions we all seek to hide?

Augustine has written, “Two persons were left, the unhappy woman and Compassion Incarnate!”

But Jesus also shows her mercy. The door of grace has been opened and she has been given an opportunity for a new beginning

MacArthur

From it a fourfold picture of Him emerges. The passage reveals His humility, His wisdom, His indictment, and His forgiveness.

His Humility 7:53-8:2

His Wisdom v3-8

The scribes (sometimes called lawyers) were the experts in interpreting the Law. They were usually, but not always, Pharisees, who along with the Sadducees, Zealots, and Essenes were one of the four major religious sects in first-century Judaism. The Pharisees were noted chiefly for their strict adherence to the Mosaic Law and their oral traditions.

They feared both losing their influence with the people, and retaliation by the Romans if Jesus’ followers started a revolt.

The last clause is emphatic in the Greek, and could be translated “You … what do you say?” or “What’s your opinion on this?”

If He objected to stoning her, He would be guilty of opposing the Mosaic Law, and thus discredit His claim to be the Messiah. On the other hand, if He agreed with her accusers that she should be stoned, His reputation for compassion toward sinners (cf. ; ; ; ) would be destroyed.

Romans: “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh” ().

“lovingkindness and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other”

God poured out His wrath against sin on Jesus so He can pour out His grace and mercy on those who believe.

The woman, her sin publicly exposed, was humiliated, terrified, and about to be stoned. The scribes and Pharisees were jubilant, thinking they had caught Jesus in an impossible dilemma. The crowd was hushed, watching intently to see how Jesus would react. But He, for the moment, surprisingly did nothing.

: “Those who depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters”

The Lord’s reply was simple, yet profound. It upheld the Law, since He did not deny the woman’s guilt, and broadened the Law’s power by exposing the sins of the accusers. It also avoided the charge of instigating an execution in violation of Roman authority, since the Lord put the responsibility back on the accusers. And it mercifully spared the woman from being stoned for her sin.

His Indictment v9a

Ironically, those who came to put Jesus to shame left ashamed; those who came to condemn the woman went away condemned.

His Forgiveness v9b-11

The term woman was a polite, respectful form of address (cf. ; ; ), one with which Jesus addressed His mother (; ), the Samaritan woman at the well (), and Mary Magdalene (, ).

,