John 8:1-30

Introduction

This part of the Gospel of John is characterised by a conflict between the grace-filled life of Jesus and the legalism of the scribes and Pharisees. At a deeper level the passage is about the nature and the identity of the God whom Jesus uniquely calls “Father”. The great danger in dealing with this story is that we will be subtly influenced by those pervasive forces in our culture that reinforce our naturally acute sense of good versus evil[1] ; these are powers which must be crucified in us if we are to avoid joining the Pharisees in their hypocrisy, something of which the Church is constantly accused[2]. Only the sinless Jesus has a perfectly clear conscience in judging others,  and only through sharing the heavenly life “from above” we can become true witnesses to the power of God to abolish all the destructive forces of  condemnation that ruin human lives (Col 3:1ff; Matt 5:14)

John 8:1-30 may be split into three parts. The story of the woman caught in adultery (vv.1-11), Jesus argument with the Pharisees about true witness (vv.12-20) and the difference between those who are “from above” and those “from below” (vv.21-30). The passage as a whole can be united around a trial theme, the trial of an adulterous woman, the trial of Jesus and finally the trial of Jesus’ opponents. The outcome of these trials will be either eternal condemnation or eternal life (cf. Matt 25:46; 2 Thess 1:9).

The Woman Caught in Adultery vv.1-11[3]

The scene is a familiar one, Jesus is teaching the people when approached by scribes and Pharisees with hostile intent (vv.1-2). This is not like the public debates we are familiar with, there are various attempts to kill Jesus before and straight after our passage (5:18; 7:19-20; 8:37, 40; 11:45). The atmosphere of the scene is therefore one of the tremendous seriousness; it breathes murder and finality.

The Highest Authority vv. 3-5

“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.”” (John 8:3-6 ESV)

The woman was caught in the act of having sex with a man other than her husband but the male offender seems conveniently to have escaped. The whole scenario appears to have been set up by Jesus’ opponents to publicly entrap him. In saying, “in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women” they appeal to an unquestionable authority (Lev 20:10; Deut 22:22)[4], for the Mosaic Law came directly from God (Lev 20:1). Jesus could not contradict Moses’ Law by simply forgiving the woman without undermining his own mission as fulfilling the Law and the prophets. On the other hand if he affirmed a stoning the Pharisees would have handed him over to the Romans, whose law made it illegal for the Jews to exact capital punishment. But if he remained silent the woman could have been lynched. There seemed to be no way forward. The scene now takes a totally unpredictable direction.

No Condemnation vv.6-11

“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.”” (John 8:6-11 ESV)

The action of Jesus bending down and writing on the ground has often puzzled people. Was he stalling for time? Was he writing down a list of their own sins? More likely it is the action of Jesus writing with his finger that reminds the scribes of how God wrote the Ten Commandments with his own finger (Ex 31:18; Deut 9:10). It was the finger of God that stamped the Law with supreme authority, and it is the same hand who will interpret the Law concerning adultery. Standing up Jesus does give a judgement, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” Every one of the assembled hostile witnesses had committed adultery with a woman in his own heart, as well as many other sins (Matt 5:28). Convicted of hypocrisy they all leave the scene beginning with the oldest and most experienced to the youngest and most self-confident. The one “who is without sin” [5]  and who could have cast a stone is left alone to speak a personal word to a guilty soul.

“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.”” (vv.10-11). The words of Jesus as the Author of the Law put everything in perspective (cf. Acts 3:15). Let me explain what I mean.

Since the finger which wrote on tablets of stone at Sinai and the finger writing in the dirt in our story are from the same hand there can be no fundamental conflict between Moses and Christ, between Law and Gospel, or between Old and New Testaments. Jesus said, ““I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.”” (Matt 5:17 NLT). Paul proclaims, “Christ has already accomplished the purpose for which the law was given.” (Rom 10:4 NLT)

Jesus taught that “all the Law and the Prophets.” depend on love for God and for neighbour (Matt 22:37-40)[6]. Only Jesus has fully loved God and totally loved others as the law demanded. When a Christian hears “law” he/she needs to think of what Jesus has accomplished and when they hear “love” they need to consider Christ’s perfect character. God’s law rightly condemned adultery because it contradicted his holiness (Lev 20:7 cf. 19:2), but Jesus has kept all of God’s holy demands on our behalf (1 Pet 3:18). There is another deep dimension to law which this passage throws up.

Fear of the condemning power of law is everywhere. When the average person driving along the highway spots a police car in their rear vision mirror they feel uneasy inside. Teenagers whose “law” is the majority opinion of the peer group sometimes are driven to depression and suicide through social media bullying. Violating the principles of one’s own conscience commonly leaves people feeling wretched (Rom 7:12, 24 cf. 3:20). Our society has all but abolished the language of sin, righteousness and judgement, but the blames, shames and anxieties of modern life bear witness to the impact of breaking the law of God. What is my point here?

The hypocritical Pharisees wandered away from the presence of Jesus but the sinful woman heard the saving word, ““Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”” (John 8:11). This is at the essence of the gospel; “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. Whoever believes in him is not condemned,” (John 3:16-18a ESV). The highest purpose of law in its ability to bruise and crush our consciences is to bring us to Christ! But not everyone comes.

True Witness vv.12-20

Jesus continues the discourse by declaring,    ““I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”” (John 8:12 ESV). This extraordinary claim to perform the function of God is immediately attacked by the Pharisees  as the height of arrogance (v.13). Jesus reply however points away from himself, ““I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going.”” (John 8:14 ESV). He is speaking of his origin and destiny in the Father. Here is the fundamental difference between Jesus and the Pharisees; ““You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.”” (vv.15). To judge “according to the flesh” is to judge by outward appearances. God rebuked the prophet Samuel, “the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”” (1 Samuel 16:6-7 ESV cf. John 7:24).

Jesus was totally confident about his judgements because he was in constant communion with his Father, ““Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.”” (John 8:16-18).

““Where is your Father?” the puzzled Pharisees inquire. Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” (John 8:19 ESV cf. 1 John 2:23).

Above and Below vv.21-30

“So he said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.” (v.21). They will die in their sins not because their sin is so massive as to be unforgiveable but because they have no consciousness of the heart of the Father. “will he kill himself” they ask (v.22).  Jesus reply is devastating, ““You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. ²⁴ I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”” (vv.23-24). The realm of “above” is the heavenly world where law does not exist as we know it, the realm of “below” is the perishing world of evil and its judgements.  Now they are totally confused,““Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. ²⁶ I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.” 27 They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father. 28 So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. ²⁹ And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” (John 8:25-29 ESV)

Throughout John’s Gospel the “lifting up” of the Son of Man refers to the cross (John 3:14; 12:32-33) and the phrase “I am he” is an Old Testament title for God (Isa 43:10). The time will come when those who condemn Jesus to death will have a personal realisation that he was who he always said, one with the Father. This realisation will come at the time of their death and at the Last Judgement.

Our passage might seem to end on a high note, “As he was saying these things, many believed in him.” (v.30), but the rest of the chapter witnesses to increasing conflict between Jesus and the Jews and it concludes with them taking up stones to kill him for blasphemy (v.59). The depth of the stubbornness of the crowd can only be grasped if we meditate on what Jesus meant when he said, “you will die in your sin”. To die in sin is to die without the Father and the Son. The terror of hell is to be left alone with our own guilty state of mind forever. Cf. JY – started to read a Bible by myself when I was at university. After a while I became deeply convinced that God had always loved me and that I had never loved him. This left me with a huge burden of guilt, and a fear with which I awoke every day of dying and going to hell. If the joy of heaven is God’s pleasure in forgiving sin and guilt and justifying the wicked (Ezek 33:11; Luke 15:7, 10; Rom 4:5), the pains of hell are certainly the torments of humans left alone forever with their own guilt and self-condemnation.

Application and Conclusion

Jesus sternly cautioned us, “condemn not and you will not be condemned” (Luke 6:37).  God alone is the final judge[7].  Paul who had once been a legalistic Pharisee passes a serious warning, “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.” (Romans 2:1 ESV). Every Christian person needs to examine their conscience with the help of the Holy Spirit (Rom 9:1 cf. 2 Cor 13:5) asking God where we are more like the Pharisees than like Jesus. Here are some examples to help us understand what a “stone-throwing” Christian would look like.

A friend of mine was talking to me during the week about how she withdraws from conversations that turn to gossip and slander (2 Cor 12:20; Gal 5:15). Back-biting is a form of stone throwing. A few days ago another believer was confessing to me his anger towards Moslems. My contact with heroin addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes, people coming out of the gay scene and even paedophiles tells me that they are people just like us. The stones cast by Christians at politicians are rarely matched by words of kindness expressed in prayer. Do any of us suffer from symptoms of road rage? Why are we so quick to believe stories about the sins of others? I was speaking with a pastor about the tales people kept telling me about another minister and I asked her what actually went on. She had heard complaints about this man, but no-one had actually asked her witness about what he had actually happened. We must not allow others to put stones in our hands (cf. Romans 16:19 ESV). There is a much more insidious form of stone-throwing than any of the above examples. I was at a men’s breakfast yesterday morning and the speaker said about 30% of mental health issues in Australia is due to people being hard on themselves. God never gave us authority from God to judge/condemn ourselves.

When Jesus said to the scribes, “I am from above, you are from below” he used a word related to the one usually translated “born again”;  every “born again Christian” is a “born from above” person  (John 3:5, 7cf. Col 3:1ff). As “born from above” persons we can be freed from the judgementalism in our culture. Condemning others holds a grip on us because it feeds our self-righteousness. All cultures need scapegoats; Jews, communists, capitalists, boat people, aboriginal people, homophobes, because every culture feeds on condemnation. Let me use a sensitive contemporary illustration.

A 13 year old girl whose own team is multicoloured uses common schoolyard language to criticise an opposition player and she is buried under an avalanche of stones – interviewed by police and her photo plastered on the front of a daily paper. A few days later Eddie McGuire makes a foolish remark meant to be a joke and is immediately branded, with the girl, as a racist and vilified all over the media. Anyone suggesting that these comments were intended as anything other than racism will face the same condemnation and themselves be branded as racist! There is no doubt that the aboriginal people involved in this felt offended, judged and condemned, and this is exactly how the teenager and Eddie feel, for they all, like most of us, will bear the scars of condemnation for the rest of their lives. It is always the case that those who condemn others have suffered condemnation themselves.

No amount of counselling, social engineering or public exposure will cleanse our country of racism or any other sin, only a guiltless witness can release us from a feeling and fear of being condemned. The only way out of the endless stone-throwing of a fallen world is to turn to the one true witness, to Jesus. In being lifted up on the cross Jesus felt the full weight of what it means to fall under of the condemnation of man and of God(Mark 15:34). His unlimited agonies testify to the depths that God has gone to reveal his true identity as one who longs to forgive. Jesus has fully and finally revealed that the Father’s pleasure is to save and not to condemn. This is the light of the world.

If judgement and condemnation bring so much anguish to human life why aren’t we seeing more people turning to God and coming to our churches?  It is because deep down the thought of appearing before the judgement seat of God, a “God” the churches represent, is unbearable (Rom 14:10). Only the followers of Jesus can testify that the judgement seat of God and the judgement seat of Christ (2 Cor 5:10) are one, the “great white throne” of the Last Judgement (Rev 20:11) is one with the “throne of grace” that we approach with confidence to receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Heb 4:16). Our Judge is him who said, “neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.” This is the message of hope we are called to bring to the world. If “judgement begins at the household of God” (1 Pet 4:17) surely a wise church will ask Jesus to judge and cleanse us from all our condemnations.

 

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