Complete Forgiveness
When the accuser comes, and in some form He will come, there is complete forgiveness in the presence of the Savior.
Introduction
Condemned
Christ Teaching was Condemned
She was Condemned
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.
Christ was Condemned
The pharisees sought to distract with their agenda.
Christ Was Condemned
Christ’s Teaching Was Condemned
Confronted
Truth always brings a person face to face with their sin.
This is a direct reference to Deuteronomy 13:9; 17:7 (cf. Lv. 24:14)—the witnesses of the crime must be the first to throw the stones, and they must not be participants in the crime itself.
Jesus’ simple condition, without calling into question the Mosaic code, cuts through the double standard and drives hard to reach the conscience.
Conviction came through what they already knew about themselves.
Many manuscripts specifically say that the accusers were ‘convicted by their own conscience’ (AV), but their stunned departure testifies as much. Those who had come to shame Jesus now leave in shame. When
When confronted with our sin, it should cause us to abandon pursuing other’s sin.
Completely Forgiven
Who is Left to Condemn?
Are you condemning yourself?
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 (3:17; 12:47), but prompt us to remember the Synoptic accounts that assign Jesus, like God himself, the right to forgive sin (Mt. 9:1–8 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).