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All right, well, if you have
your Bibles, I'd invite you to just reach down and grab them
while you're standing there and open them up to John chapter
8. John chapter 8. We spent a while
in John 7, and now I'm excited to move on into chapter 8 with
you here. Today we'll be going through
verses 1 through 11. So John chapter eight, verses
one through 11, this is the word of the Lord. But Jesus went to
the Mount of Olives. Now early in the morning, he
came again into the temple and all the people came to him and
he sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and Pharisees
brought to him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had
set her in the midst, they said to him, teacher, this woman was
caught in adultery in the very act. Now Moses and the law commanded
us that such should be stoned. But what do you say? This they
said, testing him, that they might have something of which
to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote
on the ground with his finger as though he did not hear. So
when they continued asking him, he raised himself up and said
to them, he who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone
at her first. And again, he stooped down and
wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being
convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning
with the oldest, even to the last. And Jesus was left alone
and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised
himself up and saw no one but the woman, he said to her, woman,
where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you? She
said, no one, Lord. And Jesus said to her, neither
do I condemn you, go and sin no more. Let's pray. God, we thank you for this wonderful
and glorious word, Lord, that a sinner can be brought before
you in the midst of his or her sin, covered in filthiness, Lord. And you can say, neither do I
condemn you, go and sin no more. We thank you for your forgiving
power, for your mercy and for your grace. And God, even though
it convicts us, we thank you for your law and how you uphold
your law at all times. and will not negotiate with your
law or compromise your law. God, we thank you for this Word
that has been handed down to us faithfully by our fathers.
God, we pray that our eyes would be open to the truth of what
your Holy Spirit is saying to us through these 11 verses. God,
I pray that you would just bless my tongue that I would speak
what is true and right God, that the words that I speak would
be like arrows straight into the hearts of all those that
hear, and that your spirit would pierce and penetrate to the depths
of our very being. God, I pray that everyone that
hears these words, Lord, that they would not merely hear me
up here spouting my opinion, but they would hear from you.
They would hear words of life, and they would be drawn to repentance
and to faith. God, we just pray your blessing
upon us now. In Christ's name, amen. You may
be seated. Well, before we dive into the
nuts and bolts of this text itself, I want to first make a note about
the authenticity of this section of scripture before us. In most
modern Bible translations, maybe you saw it as you were opening
up your copy of God's Word today, you'll find a little explanatory
note right above this passage saying that the verses we just
read are not included in some of the oldest manuscripts we
have. Or sometimes this passage will
even be bracketed off from the rest of the text of Scripture,
the translator saying that this is likely not original. to the
word of God. Now, I don't want us to spend
too much time today going into all the arguments for whether
this passage is legitimate or not. There have been books and
books written on this topic and just gallons of ink spilled over
this issue. And we've already addressed similar
issues to this a couple of times before, both in our Lord's Day
sermons and in our Wednesday night teachings. But suffice
it to say, there are many good reasons to believe that John
himself wrote these verses and that God intended them to be
part of the canon of scripture, much like the rest of John's
gospel. Though the passage is missing,
that's true, from some of the oldest Greek manuscripts that
we have, there are hundreds and hundreds of Greek manuscripts
that do in fact include this passage. Augustine, perhaps the
most influential father of the early church, he believed, in
fact, that the reason that some manuscripts during his day, which
is the fifth century, he thought that the reason that some of
those manuscripts were missing this passage was because wicked
men had removed it intentionally out of fear that it would encourage
their wives to commit adultery because there would be no punishment
for them. So Augustine thought that the reason it was just not
there in some of the copies that were extant at that time was
because of wickedness and faithlessness among some scribes, it would
seem. Now, whether he was right about
why this passage is absent from some of those oldest editions
of John, I don't know. But Augustine is older by far
than most of the Greek manuscripts that have survived to this day.
And he is much smarter than all of us. And I doubt he just made
this theory up out of thin air. I don't know. Now, as we'll learn,
this passage in no way, shape, or form actually condones adultery. So these fearful husbands, if
in fact they existed, were not only wicked and blasphemous for
tampering with God's Word, but they also clearly just did not
understand the passage at all. If anyone could get from this
passage, it's okay to commit adultery, then they clearly weren't
reading it with new eyes. At the end of the day, I believe
this passage is authentic and it should be received as the
word of God, and that's how we're gonna treat it today. And that's
what the church in large measure has done, regardless of what
most modern additions say. Even some modern critical scholars
that was researching this, D.A. Carson, for instance, he feels
very strongly that this passage was not original to the text
of John, but he still says, but the event probably occurred and
we can still learn biblical truth from it. So even if one were
to think it's not original, I think we can still learn a wonderful
lesson here. And that is precisely what we'll
be seeking to do today. Now, when we come to a passage
like this in scripture, where there might be some doubt, whether
it is in fact the very words of God, what should we first
do? First, we should remember God's clear promises and trust
what he has laid down for us in the Bible. The Bible says
that God will preserve his word. That's a promise. The Bible says
that God's word cannot be broken. says that it will stand forever. And as Psalm 12 tells us, that
the words of the Lord are pure words, like silver tried in a
furnace of earth, purified seven times. There's no dross in God's
word. It's only the best of the best. So that's step one when we come
to a passage like this. And then step two is that we should be
careful of deriving any unique or novel doctrine from a debated
text. Be careful to derive a doctrine
from a debated text that could not be established anywhere else
in Scripture. Now really, this is a good general
advice for all of Bible interpretation. If you are reading a passage
of Scripture and you think you've come upon some doctrine that
exists nowhere else in any passage of Scripture, the problem is
probably that you have interpreted something incorrectly. If there
is an entire doctrine that rests solely on one verse or one passage
of God's word for its footing, then that should be something
we scrutinize very, very closely before accepting. God's revelation
all lines up together. And while it would be absurd
to say that you can prove every single point of the Christian
faith from every passage of the Bible, it's true that the themes
and teachings from one passage tend to echo throughout many,
many others as well. The whole Bible works together.
It doesn't exist in isolated pieces and chunks. Even though
it's made up of 66 books written on three continents over 1,500
years in three different languages with around 40 human authors,
the whole Bible speaks with one voice. and one unified message. And that message is that there
is a sovereign, loving, powerful, and holy triune God who made
the heavens and the earth and all of it very good. And this
God is worthy of our worship and praise. And though we sinned
against this God by breaking His holy law, He graciously revealed
Himself to our fathers at various times and in various ways. And
in these last days, He has revealed Himself to us through Jesus Christ,
His Son, who is fully God and fully man. This God-man lived
a perfect life of obedience to the law of God. He died for our
sins on the cross. He rose again on the third day,
defeating death and testifying to His righteousness. And this
Jesus will save all who believe on him as Lord and Savior. And
he will empower them to live lives which honor God both now
and in eternity. And then one day this God will
fully and completely remake the heavens and the earth. And the
last enemy that will be defeated is death. all to the praise of
his glorious grace. That's the message of the scriptures.
That's the message of every book of the Bible. And when we're
seeking to interpret individual passages of God's word, we need
to make sure our interpretation of the passages lines up with
the picture of the Bible as a whole. And this passage lines up so
clearly with the overarching message of God's word. Here we
see God's perfect standard of goodness. We see our departure
from it. We see his mercy and grace, and
we see his empowering us to leave our sins behind. and we see him
restoring the dignity that we had lost. We see the message
of the Bible so clearly screaming through each of these 11 verses. So with that in mind, let's look
at this text before us today in detail. The opening of John chapter 8
is a, like I said, well-debated passage, and that also gives
it the benefit of it being very well-known. It's a well-known
passage of Scripture, often referred to as the woman caught in adultery. Or in fancy theological circles,
theologians will call it the Pericope Adultera, which means
the adultery passage. Thankfully, we're not very creative
with our names. I mean, no one's gonna get confused about what
you're talking about if you say the adultery passage. After the
Feast of Tabernacles had concluded, everyone, John says at the end
of chapter seven, everyone went back to his own home. But Jesus,
he didn't. He has no place to lay his head.
So he goes to the Mount of Olives. He goes there, we think, to just
retire for the night, to refresh his soul and his body, to spend
time communing with his father. He had just spent several days
preaching in the open air at the feast, declaring the doctrine
of God, offering salvation freely to all who would come to him,
thirsting after righteousness. So he goes to rest. However,
after just one night away from the city, he wakes up early in
the morning and he heads right back into the temple to teach
again. That was Christ's chief vocation
the last three years of his earthly life. He was, of course, a great
miracle worker. Jesus did many wonderful acts
of mercy, but everything was secondary to his teaching. People
are wanting him to heal them in the gospel of Mark and they're
crowding about him and asking him, teacher, heal us, heal us.
And he says, no, I have to go to another town to teach. That
is what I came for. He came to declare the message
of salvation. So he goes back to the temple
and he begins preaching again. But as Jesus is preaching the
word of God to all those that are gathered there at the temple,
he's interrupted this time by the scribes and the Pharisees.
So imagine this scene, if you will. Jesus is sitting down,
opening up the truth of God to the people, and disturbance arises
among the crowd. As verse 3 tells us, a group
of religious elites interrupts his sermon by bringing him a
woman caught in adultery. How strange must that have been?
Imagine I'm up here preaching and someone just starts dragging
a woman through the congregation and interrupts the sermon and
says, we need to have a court case right now. She has committed
a crime. It's very strange. So they set
this woman in the midst, it says, all the onlookers around. And
they say to Jesus, teacher, this woman was caught in adultery
in the very act Now, Moses and the law commanded us that such
should be stoned. But what do you say? Then John
notes in verse six, this they said to him, testing him that
they might have something of which to accuse him. Now, there
are four things I want us to focus on as we observe the particulars
of this passage. These four things are sinful
motives, number one, Number two, biblical authority. Number three,
proper administration of God's law. And number four, our proper
response. Now, I know all those things
sound kind of abstract, so they probably won't mean much to you
right now, per se, but I'm telling you where we're headed so you
can recognize those words when they come up again. Sinful motives,
biblical authority, proper administration of God's law, and proper response. So first, let's look at these
sinful motives. the sinful motives of the scribes and the Pharisees. As this disturbance just erupts
during the middle of the sermon, there are two important things
happening here. First, the Jews are seeking to
put an adulteress on trial with Jesus serving as the judge. But second, behind and underneath
this adultery issue, the Jews are seeking really to put Jesus
himself on trial. John says that the scribes and
Pharisees were testing Christ. They're seeking evidence by which
they can accuse him. So we can see that even though
there's this facade of trying to honor the law of God, they're
pretending to care about God's law and uphold biblical justice
and maintain the purity of God's people, it's all fake to them.
Underneath all of this pretend righteousness is the sinful and
proud hearts of the religious elite. Their actions might at
first glance appear to be good and holy. but their motives are
rotten to the core. Who else in the Gospels do we
see doing something like this? Who else do we see testing our
Lord in this way? It's Satan, of course, the accuser. Early on in Jesus's ministry,
Satan also tries to use God's word to attempt Jesus into sinning,
to catch him in something. That's very similar to what's
happening here in John 8. They are using literally satanic
methods covered up with a pretend righteousness, all to trap the
Lord. Now we first need to ask, but
how was this encounter really a test of the Lord? I mean, what's
being tested here? Well, if Jesus says that this
adulterous woman must indeed be executed, then the Jews could
probably use that as evidence that he was seeking to usurp
Roman authority. Rome did not ordinarily allow
the Jews to execute their own criminals. If an execution had
to happen, the Jews needed to make that case to the Romans
and then hand the man over to him. Now that's not in the Bible,
that's just the cultural political setting they were in. That's
why in just a matter of months from when this account occurs,
the Jews had to hand Jesus over to Pontius Pilate in order to
have him killed. So if Jesus consents to Moses'
punishment here, if he says yes, This woman needs to be killed.
Then I imagine the Pharisees would probably take that and
twist things to make him look really bad in front of the civil
magistrate. If the Jews were running the
mainstream media of the day, then the headlines would probably
write something like, powerful Jewish rabbi orders Pharisees
to execute woman. Treason fomented into something
ridiculous like that. This would no doubt be seen as
treason. Further, if Jesus affirms that this woman should be killed,
then the scribes and Pharisees would probably want to point
out an inconsistency they saw in Christ. And they would hope
that this would take away his popularity among the common people.
making him seem to contradict himself. Because remember, this
is the one who eats with tax collectors and prostitutes. This
isn't the one who kills them. This is merciful, kind Jesus
who loves sinners. Remember how gentle Christ was
with the woman at the well in John chapter four. If here he
enforces this cold and exacting justice on a woman in a very
similar situation to that Samaritan woman, then they might say, Jesus,
you're just being inconsistent. and you're being unloving. On
the other hand, if Jesus favors leniency and he does not say
that this woman should be killed, then the scribes and the Pharisees
would most likely accuse him of dishonoring Moses and of breaking
God's law. That's their MO already. We already
know he's a Sabbath breaker. Now he's breaking the seventh
commandment also, thou shalt not commit adultery. And he's
perverting justice. These cunning Jewish leaders
think that they have come up with this perfect scenario to
trap our Lord. They probably cooked this up
in a little huddled room in the dark of night thinking, what's
the best way? What's an airtight way we could
get him where there's no possibility that he could escape this time.
No matter which way he goes, they think he's gonna be arrested
and we can probably get him executed this time. Though they pretend
to honor the law, they're not concerned about the law at all
here. They're only concerned about deceiving and trapping
our Lord. These are wicked men and their
motives are wicked. You can almost imagine the barely
veiled smiles that must have been on their faces as they posed
the question to Christ. What do you say? It's a very
wicked man that smiles in the face of God's law being broken.
And that's what they're doing here. We found a way to trap
him. How do you think we should proceed with this adulterous
Jesus? And even though they think they've
got a no-win scenario completely to their surprise, Jesus stoops
down and he starts writing in the dirt with his finger as if
he doesn't even hear them. They were, I'm certain, confused,
irritated, deflated. They didn't know what to do. That leads us to the second thing
I want us to focus on this morning. The first was the sinful motives
of the scribes and the Pharisees. The second thing I want to highlight
is how Jesus calmly and quietly reorients them to proper biblical
authority. Jesus reorients the scribes and
Pharisees to think about proper biblical authority. And then
we'll also end up bleeding right into our third point, they kind
of go together, which is proper administration of God's law.
So Jesus here does not initially dignify the evil schemes of the
scribes and Pharisees, even with a spoken response. Sometimes
when someone asks a question and the motives are clearly sinful,
they're not really looking for an answer. They're just looking
to slam you or trap you or misrepresent you. Sometimes it's just better
to ignore them. Children, your parents tell you when someone
speaks to you, you always respond. That's true generally. But when
you become an adult, you might realize that sometimes people
aren't wanting to talk to you at all. They're just wanting
to trap you in their wicked schemes. And when that happens, sometimes
it's just best to ignore them. Proverbs 26 four says, answer
not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.
Don't step down to the level of the fool. Don't make them,
don't give them the power to bring you over to their playing
field. Don't cede ground to the fool. Don't step down to the
level of obstinance and wickedness. Sometimes it's better just to
ignore them. But then sometimes it is better
to answer the fool, but not according to his folly. Sometimes it's
better to answer him on your own terms and to do it with piercing
truth. And that's exactly the approach
that Jesus takes here. First, he acts like he doesn't
even hear them. He just starts writing in the sand. This must
have been very strange. A dignified Jewish rabbi has
a huge crowd around him. He just stoops down and uses
his finger and he's just, I don't even know what he's doing. He's
maybe making shapes, signs, pictures. It could be nothing. Maybe he
is writing something important. Maybe it's Bible verses. Maybe
he's citing certain portions of God's law. We don't know.
But clearly the scribes and Pharisees are thrown off. They don't think
he's writing anything important. They're not even paying attention
to it. We see here in verse seven that
they continue to ask him, Jesus, hello, what do you think we should
do with this woman? When they don't stop, when they're
persistent, our text says that Jesus raised himself up and said
to them, he who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone
at her first. And then again, he stooped down
and wrote on the ground. Christ pops up for just a minute. He
gives the scribes and Pharisees a short, clear response. And
then he goes back to writing in the sand. The Jews here thought
that they had given Jesus a multiple-choice question. Jesus, what do you
say we should do with this woman caught in the very act of adultery?
Here are your options. A. Kill her. Or B. Don't kill her. Simple. They
think they've got him trapped. Then Jesus answers option C.
He was without sin among you. Let him throw a stone at her
first. We might think at this point, the scribes and Pharisees
would either verbally express their confusion or irritation,
or they would dig in their heels and push Jesus to give a clear
answer. No, no, no, Jesus, that wasn't an option. Do we kill
her or do we not kill her? But what actually happens next?
I wanna read again, starting at verse seven, but gonna continue
on through verse nine of our text. So when they continued
asking him, he raised himself up and said to them, he who is
without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first. And
he again stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who
heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one
by one, beginning with the oldest, even to the last. And Jesus was
left alone and the woman standing in the midst. Instead of answering
back to our Lord, those who heard Christ saying were convicted
in their consciences, And they went out one by one beginning
with the elders. Now what's going on here? Jesus
is reorienting the conversation. They want him to talk about this.
He says, no, no, no, we're gonna talk about the root issue. I'm
not gonna justify your particular question with the response you
want. We're gonna go to the root of the matter. The root of the
matter is biblical authority and the proper administration
of God's law. Jesus is changing the conversation. First, we see that Christ refuses
to stand in the place of a judge. This is our first note about
biblical authority. Even though Jesus is the lawgiver himself,
and even though he is the one who will judge the world one
day, he did not come to earth the first time as a judge. Jesus
goes on to say in just a few chapters that he did not come
to judge the world, but to save it. And that's actually just
the exact same thing he says in John 3, verse 17, which we've
already been over. Jesus is saying, if you're looking
for a judge, I'm not in session at the moment. I'm teaching now. I'm not judging. You need to
appeal to another authority. And that authority is the written
word of God. You come to me, Jesus might've
said, quoting the law of Moses, but are you actually reading
and submitting to that law? Let's look at it and see what
it says. You say that this woman that
has been caught in adultery must be stoned. All right, what else
does that law say? Jesus might've implied. He wants
to make sure if they're gonna carry out this act of execution,
that they're really following what God's word lays out, not
just pretending to. So this is, let's look at the
law, see what the scribes and Pharisees might've been missing.
First, both in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, God's law is crystal
clear that in the case of adultery, both the man and the woman must
be put to death. The man is just absent here.
Did anyone catch that? Where is the man? This is the
woman caught in adultery. Now tell me, how in the world
can a group, it seems like this group was there, can a group
of scribes and Pharisees, that's at least four adult men, how
in the world can a group of adult men find a man and a woman together
in the very act of adultery and only manage to catch one of them?
That seems a little suspicious to me. Did they just let the
man go? Or was this event all staged
and the man was in on the plot with the scribes and Pharisees?
Maybe he seduced or coerced this woman into committing adultery
with him at the request of the rulers. Maybe it was just a predetermined
scheme where the woman is no doubt very guilty, but at the
same time, she's just a pawn in an elaborate game of chess
in which the Pharisees are willing to sacrifice pieces left, right,
and center as long as they can put that King, that's Jesus,
in check. Now that's speculative, we don't
know, but it's very possible that something like that happened
here. Next, look at specifically what Jesus says to the scribes
and Pharisees when he does finally answer them. He says, he who
is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone. The
law did provide for the killing of adulterers. It didn't necessarily
require stoning in every instance, so that's another conversation,
but it did require the killing of adulterers. And when stoning
was required in the old covenant law, Who was it that was to begin
the act of stoning? It was the witnesses. Whoever
witnessed the act, they were the ones that had to begin the
execution. Jesus might've just said, you
want this woman stoned, well, you better get to it because
you're the ones that have to carry out the act. But make sure
you remember the ones doing the stoning can't be guilty of the
act themselves. If you're gonna stone someone
for a crime, you can't be implicated in the crime too. Now that's
not explicitly stated in those words in the old covenant laws
against adultery, but it's so clear that it doesn't need to
be. Why is it so clear? Because every guilty party in
the act of adultery must be killed. So if you're guilty in it, you
don't get to do the killing, you get to be killed. And the
witnesses who are also the executioners, they are representatives of God's
righteous standard of justice. So obviously they can't be implicated
in the crime that's being punished. Jesus himself is very clear,
in case someone missed this in the Old Testament law, he's very
clear that we are to judge, but when we judge, we must judge
with righteous judgment, not hypocritical judgment. For with
the judgment with which we judge others, we also will be judged
ourselves. He's saying, if you wanna kill
someone for adultery, make sure you're not guilty of adultery.
And it was Jesus himself who called the Pharisees an adulterous
generation. Later on in Romans Paul will
say, Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are. who judge,
for in whatever you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you
who judge practice the same things. But we know that the judgment
of God is according to truth against those who practice such
things. And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing
such things and doing the same, do you think that you will escape
the judgment of God? You who say, do not commit adultery,
do you commit adultery? When Jesus says that the one
who is without sin is the one who must cast the first stone,
he does not mean that you have to be sinlessly perfect to pronounce
or execute righteous judgment. In fact, that would undermine
the entire law. That's not at all what Jesus is communicating
here. But what he means is if you want to execute this woman
for committing adultery, then you better not be guilty of adultery
yourself. Either of this particular act
of adultery as if they were scheming or plotting to make this happen,
or perhaps even these men were lying in wait and watching the
sin unfold, waiting for it to happen so they could have an
accusation instead of stepping in and stopping it. Or he could
just be saying, you better not be guilty of adultery in general.
Like maybe the Pharisee's hands are squeaky clean of this particular
incident. But if you've ever been unfaithful
to your wife and you have not truly repented or faced justice
yourself, then you are still in your sins and you cannot cast
a stone against her. So you can see that far from
overthrowing the law or softening the law, as some liberal commentators
and pastors might want you to believe, Jesus is actually making
sure that the scribes and the Pharisees are obeying the law.
He says, you're understanding this one little piece, but have
you read everything that Moses wrote? you need to properly administer
the law of God. And then our last thing that
I want us to focus on this morning is the proper response to Christ
and his law. After Jesus writes in the sand
and says, let he who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.
And then he writes in the sand again. Then in verse nine, we
read that those who heard it being convicted by their conscience,
went out one by one, beginning with the oldest, even to the
last. And Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the
midst. I think we are all wondering, what was it that Jesus wrote
in the sand? But if we needed to know, guess
what? We would know. It would be included here. God
apparently did not see fit that we needed to know this particular
detail. I think that the first time it
very well could have been nothing in particular. Like I said, Jesus
could have just been drawing shapes and saying to show that
I'm ignoring you because you're not worth responding to. Or it
could have been portions of the law, perhaps about adultery or
righteous judgment. The second time Christ stooped
down, he could have written more of the same, or as one very respected
tradition holds, he may actually have written out the sins of
the accusers. That's what a lot of the manuscript
variants say, that Jesus stooped down again to write in the sand
and he wrote their sins. And then they left one by one
beginning with the elders. Whatever it was though, it doesn't
matter for us today. The text of scripture really
doesn't make much of it here. John notes that it was not what
was written in the sand that made the scribes and Pharisees
leave, rather they were convicted by their conscience after they
heard Christ's words. It was the hearing of his words,
not the reading of his words. So there's not some secret meaning
locked up in the sand that we have lost to time. They were
convicted in their conscience when they heard Christ speak.
Now, these were natural men, men still in the bond of iniquity. They were not born again. They
were out here twisting the words of Scripture in an attempt to
trap and hopefully execute the Son of God. But the Bible says
they still had the witness of their conscience. Everyone has
a conscience. Think of the worst person you
could imagine. They have a conscience, might
be seared, might be hardened, but they have a conscience. And
written on that conscience, on the conscience of every single
human being is the law of God. Maybe dim, maybe rudimentary
in some ways, but it is there. the law of God written on everyone's
heart. That's why unbelievers know that
they are sinners, even if they won't admit it. They know at
the end of the day, at the bottom of it all, that they are sinners
and that there is a God with which they must give an account
to. Now, your conscience can't lead
you to Christ. It can't save you, but it can lead you to conviction. It can lead you to a knowledge
that you are guilty and it can make you feel this guilt and
have a desire to be freed from it. This is a great gift from
God. But these Jews, even though they were being pricked in their
conscience when they heard the words of Christ, we don't see
them repenting here. We don't see them crying out,
what must we do to be saved? Rather, we just see them slinking
away in shame. Instead of seeking to be freed
from their guilt, they ran away and they covered it up, leaving
Jesus and the woman alone together. Now, there might still be a crowd
around them. I don't think the text is super clear. Remember,
all the people in the temple court had gathered to hear Jesus
preach. This had all happened in the middle of a sermon. Do
you really think everyone's just gonna automatically leave and
think they need some privacy for this affair? But the crowd,
whether they were there or not at this point, they've just faded
into the background. It's like when you get married and the
husband and wife are taking their vows, they have no understanding
that the congregation's out there watching them, because their
eyes are only for each other. The crowd is just faded into the
background. It's as if that Jesus and this
woman are all alone. The last time that this woman
was alone with a man, with onlookers in the background, she was breaking
God's law. That was when she was caught
in the very act of adultery. Now she's standing here with
the lawgiver himself, but she's not being condemned. He's looking
at her and he's addressing her tenderly. Woman, we read in verse
10. And that was a tender form of
address in that culture and in that time. Different, sounds
different than it does to us today. We wouldn't just address
other women in our lives as woman, not tender anymore. He says,
woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned
you? He knows the answer, of course.
She said, no one, Lord. And Jesus said to her, neither
do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. Jesus is not papering over her
sin. He's not excusing her sin. He's
not acting like she didn't sin. In fact, he's affirming that
she is a sinner. He tells her go and sin no more.
That clearly implies that she had been sinning. And I don't
think he's only referring to the general idea that, well,
you're a human being and all human beings are sinners. I think
Christ is implicitly saying, don't commit adultery anymore.
But we still might think, okay, but Christ isn't upholding the
law. He is letting an adulteress go.
And as the Pharisees and scribes correctly pointed out, she must
be killed. How can Jesus do that? How can
he compromise with God's uncompromising word? Well, there are two big
things to consider here. In order for this woman to be
convicted under the law of God, remember proper administration
of God's law, very important. In order for her to be convicted,
she had to be charged with adultery by at least two eyewitnesses. And all the witnesses withdrew
their testimony. They all left. They left the
makeshift courtroom. They no longer stood in condemnation
against her. So Jesus says, I just want to
clarify, has no one condemned you? She says, no one, Lord.
They're all gone. So there would be no clear biblical
warrant to stone this woman if we're following the letter of
the law. Even if she's committed adultery, if she has no accuser,
she is not to be condemned. And then secondly, even though
it seems she is truly guilty, we should not be surprised that
Christ has chosen her for forgiveness. This is exactly in keeping with
the character of Jesus. It is his prerogative to forgive
whomever he wants. And he doesn't have to justify
that to you or me or anyone. And when Christ forgives someone,
that doesn't mean he acts like the sin didn't occur. No, that
means He Himself is personally committing to paying that penalty
on the cross. He's not saying, well, we're
just not going to count this one against you. You're going to get a mulligan
this time. Go get a redo. Don't do it again. He's saying,
I forgive you. I'm going to take the punishment
of an adulteress. Think of that. Just like Hosea.
He's taking the punishment. His wife's the adulteress. Jesus
is taking the punishment. In just six months' time, he'll
die on the cross for these sins. After telling this woman that
he does not condemn her, Jesus then instructs her to go and
sin no more. And here is the great moral lesson
for all of us. Every one of us who knows Christ
as Lord and Savior is like this woman caught in adultery. We
have broken the law of God, and we have been accused of this
crime by the word, by our consciences, perhaps even by others. We've
been caught red-handed and brought to Jesus. Children, think of
how before you've been brought to your parents guilty of some
sin. This has happened to all of you.
And you know you're guilty. You know you've been disobedient.
How do you respond in that scenario? Do you just kind of slink away?
Or do you repent? Adults, now that you're grown,
you might not be brought to your parents any longer for discipline,
but perhaps you've been hauled before your bosses before, superior
officers, teachers, policemen, pastors, judges, spouses, friends,
whomever. You've been brought before someone
guilty of some sin. Something that you've done wrong
has been exposed. How do you respond? If you're
in Christ by faith, no matter what any human authority has
said to you in those moments, know that Jesus is calling down
from heaven. I do not condemn you. Go and
sin no more. The only proper response to that
is grateful repentance. That's it. That's the only option.
Grateful repentance. Now, if you're here and you can't
relate at all to this, you're thinking, I've never been brought
before some authority and I've never been pricked in my conscience,
pray that God would convict you of your sin even right now. Let
your conscience be pricked by this passage as you hear the
words of Christ, the same words that these Pharisees heard. But
don't be like the Pharisees. Don't slink away from your conviction. Rather admit your fault and ask
for forgiveness. Who of you has broken the seventh
commandment? Who of you has not been pure
in heart, language, and conduct? And if you don't think you've
broken that one, that's not a temptation to me, James. Try any of the
other nine on for size. You will not come through that
trial unscathed. Have you really always in every moment of your
life honored your father and your mother? Have you always
worshiped God as he has commanded? Have you coveted something of
somebody else's, maybe their family or their body or their
money or their house or their job? Whatever it is, you are
guilty before the law. The law is given by God graciously
to condemn us. But if you believe that Christ
died for your sins, according to the scriptures, that he was
buried, that he was raised again on the third day, according to
the scriptures, then he does not condemn you. Not because
he's working against his law, but because he's fulfilling his
law in your place. Jesus can free you from the harsh
penalty that the law sends down, but he does then command you
to go and sin no more. You're not free to go and sin
as you please. You're free and empowered to
go and obey the law from a pure and new heart. You're free to
live a righteous life in Christ Jesus. Make no mistake, you cannot
repent before coming to Christ. You have to come to him like
this woman in adultery, caught in the very act, filthy, unworthy,
still in your sins. But if you come to Christ in
faith, believing that He's the Son of God, then you will repent. It will be a slow, imperfect,
and at times painful repentance, but it will be real. Real repentance
is not just a desire not to be condemned, but it is a change
of heart, mind, and actions. This is different than just being
pricked in your conscience. There'll be many people who get
sent to hell who were pricked in their conscience, but who
slunk away in shame instead of standing up and looking at Christ
in the face and asking for mercy. The scribes and Pharisees, they
felt bad for their sins. They even stopped one sin in
the middle of it. They left off this particular
crime of trying to trick Jesus and kill this woman. But did
they truly repent? It seems very unlikely. True
repentance is the only right response to being convicted of
sin. Cry out to God for mercy and
ask that he would grant grace. And then ask again and again
and again. Just like every week we have
confession of sin. As Martin Luther wrote, when
our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, repent, he willed the entire
lives of believers to be one of repentance. So all of us every
day should pray, Lord, help me repent. When our conscience again
brings us before the judgment seat of the law of God, we should
look to Christ and remember the words, who can bring a charge
against God's elect? There is no condemnation left
for me. I'm covered by the blood of Christ. He took it all. And
then we must work out our salvation with fear and trembling, trusting
that it is God who works within us both to will and to do according
to his good pleasure. We must strive with everything
in us to go and sin no more. Let's pray together. God, we
thank you for your grace and your mercy. We thank you for
the work of the law upon us. We thank you that you upheld
the law at every moment of your life. And even today, you are
a great law-upholding king. But God, we thank you that you
are also a law-satisfying savior. God, that for those of us who
are in Christ, the law does not condemn us eternally, but it
is a beautiful lamp to light the way that our feet should
walk so that we might go and sin no more. Thank you that you
did not leave us without a revelation of how to do this. That you didn't
say, go and sin no more, but leave us guessing as to what
that meant. But you've given us clarity in your word. God,
thank you for your love and your grace. In Christ's name, amen.
The Woman Caught in Adultery
In this sermon we look at the incident of the woman who was caught in adultery being brought before Jesus. Specifically, we highlight the motives of the scribes and the Pharisees, Jesus's emphasis on biblical authority and the proper administration of God's law, and what the appropriate response is when we are convicted of sin.
| Sermon ID | 224252115107864 |
| Duration | 46:36 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | John 8:1-11 |
| Language | English |
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