Holiness Flows From Mercy

John 7:53-8:11

In coming to this text this morning, we must take a different approach because this is a different kind of passage. I pray that this morning God will gracious do 3 things in us: 1) give us ever-increasing confidence in His Word; 2) help us to be able to approach the Bible with more confidence and care; 3) give us a renewed resolve to walk in pursuit of holiness

The inauthenticity of this passage

This passage is not found in any of the earliest Greek manuscripts

This passage is not found in any of the writings of the early Church fathers

This includes all church fathers up until the 12th century

This passage is found in different locations in the manuscripts that it is found in

John 7:36, 7:34, 21:25, and Luke 21:38

A notable number of the manuscripts that do include it also insert an asterisk beside it to indicate doubt about its authenticity

This passage carries few of the marks of Johannine writing

It reads much more like one of the Synoptic Gospels, specifically Luke

It does not fit into the flow of this passage

Note the flow from 5:52 to 8:12

This is a very common type of transition in John’s Gospel

So why is it included in every old translation?

A Dutch priest named Erasmus, around 1516, sought to create the first critical edition of the Greek New Testament, which was soon named the “Textus Receptus” (received text). It is from the work of Erasmus that William Tyndale translated the Bible into English, and that translation became known as the Tyndale Bible. This was the first widely accessible English Bible and became the standard basis for all other English translations including the KJV in 1611. The reason that this passage was included is that Erasmus only had a handful of late Greek manuscripts from only one of the 4 families of manuscripts, and these manuscripts included this passage.

A number of potential dangerous reactions

Brush it off as someone trying to attack your Bible

Cease to believe in the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture

Runaway from the Bible because you feel its authority is undermined

Why this doesn’t undermine our confidence in the Bible

Highly likely that this was a real event

The scribe perhaps used this account to illustrate 7:24 and 8:15

Nothing about the passage is antithetical to anything else that the Bible teaches

We can read it while being careful not to give this account the authority of inspired Scripture

Guilty of sin

She is undoubtedly guilty of sin

The Jews want to stone her in accord with the law

They are referencing Deuteronomy 22:24

Deuteronomy 22:24- then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

They are all guilty of sin

None of them has kept the law perfectly

They failed to recognize this

Matthew 7:1-3- “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

Their condemnation of this woman is in self-righteousness, not in right judgment

They have apparently failed to remember or apply the hatred of God against idolatry- which is their problem

Ezekiel 16:38-40- And I will judge you as women who commit adultery and shed blood are judged, and bring upon you the blood of wrath and jealousy. And I will give you into their hands, and they shall throw down your vaulted chamber and break down your lofty places. They shall strip you of your clothes and take your beautiful jewels and leave you naked and bare. They shall bring up a crowd against you, and they shall stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords.

We are guilty of sin

None of us are without sin

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

1 John 1:8- If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Romans 6:23- For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Go and sin no more

He extends grace to her

He does not pick up a rock and stone her

He is the only one there who would have been perfectly justified in doing that very thing

He extends forgiveness to her

He commands her to go and sin no more

She must not use His forgiveness as a free pass to keep living in sin

We are to go in the mercy that he has shown and strive for holiness

Ephesians 5:8-9- for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true),

Romans 6:1-4- What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

You can be confident that all that we have taken from this text is sound and true, not primarily because this text says it, but because what this the point of this text is thoroughly supported by the rest of the NT.

Therefore, rejoice in the mercy of God to you through Christ and now may you walk in the newness of life that is found in Him.