Jesus and the Adulterer
February 12, 2023 Pastor: Hardin Crowder Series: Who Do You Say That I Am?
Topic: Jesus, Forgiveness
Series Introduction:
Since the New Year began, we have been in a series of messages titled “Who Do You Say That I Am?” We have looked at people from all different walks of life and how their encounters with Jesus transformed their lives. This is the second to last week of our series before we shift gears for Lent and Easter, but it is also one of my personal favorite accounts from the Gospel of John. In this moment we see Jesus, in the Temple of God, presented with a sinner who committed a crime that in her day was a death sentence. The men who brought her to Jesus wanted him to pass judgment on her, but what happened that day ended up surprising everyone.
Scripture Reading:
John 7:53-8:11: They went each to his own house, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
Matthew 7:3-5: 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? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.
Opening Prayer:
Father God, please open up our hearts and prepare us to receive your word preached. Help us to see the truth that you wish to convey in your word, and let us be quick to act on anyway that your Spirit leads us. Teach us to be merciful as you are merciful. We ask all of this in Your Son’s holy and precious name, Amen.
Introduction:
If you remember two weeks ago when I preached on Jesus’ encounter with the paralytic man, you may recall why Jesus’ statement “Son, your sins are forgiven” was so controversial. In the Biblical worldview, true forgiveness is a multi-layered concept.
I can forgive someone who does wrong against me if I choose not to seek punishment or retribution, but that does not make that person innocent of the wrong they committed. It just means that I do not personally hold their sin against them. True forgiveness, the kind that truly cleanses a person from sin and guilt, can only come from God. This is why it was such a controversial thing for Jesus to do when he declared someone’s sins forgiven, he was essentially speaking on God’s behalf and claiming the authority to do what only God could do.
In order to receive forgiveness for their sins, Jews would offer ritual sacrifices in which an innocent animal would symbolically take their place and die as a result of their guilt and sin. It was a gruesome reminder that sin always leads to death, and should not be taken lightly. I sometimes wonder if we would take sin so casually today if we knew that doing so would result in death and the shedding of innocent blood. The reason that we no longer offer sacrifices is that we believe that Jesus was our “once and for all” sacrifice (Hebrews 9:22, 26). It was the whole reason he came. John the Baptist said as much at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry when he declared,
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”
- 1 John 1:29, ESV.
The forgiveness we see on display in this passage is not merely one person forgiving another person. What we witness here is nothing short of a miracle. It is an act of sacrificial love on the part of our merciful savior, given at the cost of his own blood.
This They Said To Test Him
Try to imagine this scene unfolding in your mind. We have Jesus the Messiah, teaching in the temple of Jerusalem. The temple was the holiest of holy places on earth, so holy that its innermost parts could only be entered by special priests on special occasions. It was the place where the great sacrifices and offerings were performed in the presence of God for the forgiveness of the sins of the nation. And here was the Messiah, the Savior King, teaching from the Law and the Prophets about the Kingdom of God that he would usher in.
Then enters the Scribes (experts in the Law) and Pharisees (teachers of righteousness) and they present Jesus with an impossible test. If you are familiar with the gospel accounts of the life of Jesus, you know that this was not an unusual occurrence. The religious leaders often came to Jesus with tricky hypothetical situations to see if they could trick him into saying something that they could use against him. What made this moment different was not only the location, but the fact that they had not brought a hypothetical question, but a real flesh and blood person. A woman who had been caught in the act of adultery, and whose life was now placed in the hands of Jesus the Messiah.
There are a few things we ought to take note of here. First the Law of God, which both Jesus and the religious leaders knew well, clearly classified adultery as a capital offense punishable by death:
If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.
- Leviticus 20:10, ESV
If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.
- Deuteronomy 22:13-24, ESV
This shows us just how serious God takes marital faithfulness. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul would describe marriage as a metaphor for the Gospel itself, and so violating a vow like that was no small thing in the eyes of God. Now cases where an adulterer was executed were rare because the Law of God also required two credible witnesses for a person to be found guilty. This was to prevent someone from making baseless accusations or having someone condemned on hearsay. The Scribes and Pharisees knew this, and so it is safe to assume that this woman was not only guilty but that they had more than enough evidence to convict her.
The religious leaders knew that this was a perfect trap. If Jesus sentenced this woman to death then the religious leaders could say that he is not greater than Moses and does not have the authority to forgive sins. They might also get him in trouble with the Romans who did not grant the Jews permission to enforce capital punishment, which is why later in the gospels we see the Jewish leaders bringing Jesus before the Roman governor Pilate, because they could not have him killed without Rome’s permission. On the other hand, if Jesus declared this woman’s sins forgiven, they could accuse him of contradicting the Law of Moses and allowing sin to dwell unpunished in God’s holy temple.
It was a perfect trap, but Jesus was not interested in their theological and political word games. Jesus saw a real flesh and blood person at his feet, a woman who was both a great sinner and a dearly beloved human being, made in the image of God. Jesus’ concern was holiness and justice, but also salvation and compassion. He is the only person on earth who ever fully balanced these two realities.
Restorative Love in a Sinful World
Sometimes I think we all forget that behind the issues and moral debates of our age, there are real people who are loved by God. The Law of God is good for pointing out right and wrong, but if the goal was simply to separate the righteous from the unrighteous then Christ was unnecessary. It is easy to look at the evils in the world and to be justifiably upset, but our problem is that we are not God and no one hates all sins as much as we should. It is also easy to forget that our mission on earth is not to condemn the sinners, but to preach the gospel of hope and repentance so that they can be redeemed, restored, and rescued by the loving sacrifice of Christ.
I fully believe that what God’s word calls sin should not be tolerated by those who claim to follow Christ, but as we think about how we ought to respond to sin we should also consider if we are responding out of love for both God and our neighbor. Is our goal to be redemptive or do we just want to put wrong-doers in their place. Are we speaking words intended to heal, or are we going out of our way to hurt with our words. Sometimes the truth hurts no matter how lovingly you present it, but I believe it is always worth the effort to do so in love.
But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.
- 1 Peter 3:15, ESV
I think the reason we so often fail to speak out against sin in love is twofold:
On one hand, I think there is a tendency in some of us to preserve peace at all costs. The Bible warns against “saying 'peace, peace' when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14). If that is your tendency then I would encourage you to realize that your silence is seen by many as acceptance and permission. To witness something wrong and do nothing about it is not being Christlike, and too many wicked things in this world continue because Christians do nothing and pretend that their inaction is love.
On the other hand, I think there is a tendency in others of us to be vocal and active crusaders against sin, but if we don’t equally fight against the sin in our own lives then we may subtly succumb to the temptation of believing that all the evils of the world are out there, failing to see the evil that dwells in our own hearts. Jesus warned us against this in his sermon on the mount:
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? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.
- Matthew 7:3-5, ESV
I believe that we all have our lists of serious sins, acceptable sins, and probably more than a few sins that we don’t even really consider sins at all. I think more often than not our problem is not the sins we hate, but the sins we tolerate. The answer is not to take a laxed attitude towards sin, but to realize that we and everyone else we encounter is a sinner in need of a savior. If we are any better off than them, we can only attribute that to God’s grace at work in us. This is what the Pharisees and the Scribes failed to realize.
We are told in this account that Jesus initially does not answer the Pharisees, but instead begins to write with his finger in the dirt. People have speculated about what this detail means. Some think Jesus may have been writing the ten commandments, the pillars of the Law of God. Others think he was simply pausing to give the Scribes and Pharisees time to think about what they were doing, possibly time to cool down and reconsider their actions. We aren’t told, so we must draw our own assumptions. Whatever the reason, when the Scribes and Pharisees continually press Jesus to pronounce a Judgment, he rises and simply responds:
“Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”
- John 8:7b
Back in the days of Jesus, stoning was a form of capital punishment. Essentially after a person was found guilty they crowd ould pick up stones and throw them at you until you died. The reasoning behind this death is that no one person would be guilty of taking your life since everyone played a part.
Jesus doesn’t deny this woman’s guilt or the punishment she deserves, but he turns the focus back on her accusers. He tells them that if we want to pass judgment, we must be sinless or else we condemn ourselves in the process. Again to quote from Jesus’ sermon on the mount:
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.
Matthew 7:1-2, ESV
And before we jump to the conclusion of thinking that we would pass the judgment, let’s remember that the judge is not a human judged who can be tricked or manipulated. Jesus tells us that there is no secret sin that escapes the attention of God:
Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.
- Luke 12:2-3, ESV
Not only does God see all our words and actions, but he also knows our heart and the sinful intentions that dwell within:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
- Matthew 5:27-28, ESV
Are you innocent in your words, actions, and thoughts? Would you stand before holy God and make such a claim? I think you would have to be a fool to think that your righteousness is on par with the righteousness of God.
Now whenever I teach this passage, or preach on forgiveness, I want to keep you from straying into some of the common misconceptions:
First, Jesus is not saying that we cannot look at a person’s sin and tell them that their sin is wrong. That is not the same as passing judgment, that is telling them the truth. It is also the loving thing to do because we want them to repent of their sin and find salvation and new life in Christ. The warning is not to stand in the place of God and act like you are the judge, jury, and executioner of justice.
Second, this is not saying that it is always wrong to punish evil in the world. When the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome, he referred to government appointed rulers and judges as “God’s servant for your good” even going so far as to say that “he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out Gods’ wrath on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:3-4, ESV). Likewise, the Apostle Peter called Christians to submit to the rule of governors as far as it was possible because they were sent “to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good” (1 Peter 2:13-17, ESV). Expanding this to our modern world, it is the role of legislatures to pass just laws and for people like police officers to enforce those laws. They have been given a special calling by God to be servants of justice in the world, and (whether they realize it or not) they will be held accountable to God for the ways they used their power and authority.
The men who had condemned this woman were not judges or civil law enforcers, they were religious leaders and scholars. They were not working for this woman’s restoration, but they were using her to get at Jesus. In his wisdom, Jesus reminds the accusers of the weight of justice, and we see the inevitable result:
But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
John 8:9, ESV
Jesus Friend of Sinners
One by one the men left the adulterous woman until she was alone, standing in front of the Messiah. For most of this message I have placed us in the place of the Scribes and Pharisees, but now I would like for you to imagine yourself in the place of this woman. Imagine your sins had been exposed to the world and you felt that punishment would soon rain down upon you from all sides. Now imagine every condemning voice being silenced, and every accuser in your life walking away in silence one by one until you are left alone in the presence of Jesus the Son of God, standing in the Holy Temple.
Finally the silence is broken “Where are they? Has no one condemned you?” (John 8:10). Looking around and seeing no one you reply “No one, Lord.” Then you hear the beautiful words from the lips of God,
“Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
- John 8:11, ESV
Jesus had declared just a few chapters before this in John 5 that “The Father… has given all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22, ESV), meaning that Jesus has the exclusive right to declare divine judgment from his own authority, and yet in this moment he chooses not to do so. I can guarantee you that Jesus hates this woman’s sin more than any Pharisee or Sadducee or Scribe ever will, and yet Jesus’ heart for this woman (and by extension each of us) is deeper than we can ever imagine.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
- John 3:16-17, ESV
There will be a time and place for judgment, before the judgment comes days of mercy in which salvation and forgiveness are extended to all that will receive these gifts. These gifts were bought at a great price. Jesus himself would carry this woman’s guilt to the cross and suffer in her place, so that she might not be eternally separated from the Love of God. We who are in Christ have received the same gifts at the same cost. This is the amazing good news of the Gospel!
So if you find yourself this morning carrying the weight of sin and condemnation heavy on your shoulders, I encourage you to come to Jesus and find the forgiveness and mercy that he offers you. The other voices don’t matter, let them fade away, if Christ has declared you forgiven then you are truly forgiven.
But maybe this morning you find yourself struggling to forgive someone or finding that your heart is heavy with animosity towards someone, maybe deserved, maybe not, but heavy nonetheless. My encouragement to you this day is to remember the grace by which you were saved, and to trust that God will handle this. Their sin will either follow them into judgment or will be washed in the blood of Christ, but it will not go undealt with forever. You can rest in knowing that what was made wrong will be made right. Justice will resound and love will win the day.
Prayer of Decision:
Father God, we thank you for your mercy and grace that extends forgiveness and pardon to sinners like me. I thank you for the cross and the costly price you paid to redeem us. Help us to boldly stand for what is right and to speak out against what is wrong, but not with the goal of condemnation. Let us be a people of restoration so that all that is wrong can be made right in you. Forgive us of our sins, and teach us to walk in your ways. Amen.
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