The Apostle John provides us with a captivating scene of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Jesus and the adulterous woman. He provides us with important insights into our fallen sinful condition. But most importantly, he gives us insightful and compelling reasons to believe that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you can have life in his name” (John 20:31). Let’s take a look at what this story teaches us about Jesus.
In the account of Jesus the woman who committed adultery, we see the compassion of Jesus on full public display in the temple. This story is matched only by Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son in showing God’s love and mercy, and the path to salvation.
Jesus and the adulterous woman
One day, while Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. Forcing her to stand in front of all the people, they asked Jesus, “Master, this woman was caught in an act of adultery. In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now, what do you say?”
If Jesus had consented to stone the woman, he would be breaking Roman law and making people mistrust him. However, refusing to stone her could be interpreted as treating the Law of Moses too lightly.
Knowing that they were trying to trap him, Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger. They persisted in questioning him until Jesus stood up and said: “Let any one of you who is without sin cast the first stone.”
This is a tremendous statement about being judged not only towards the adulterous woman but towards all sinners. Jesus said that only those without sin were worthy to cast the first stone.
Don’t you think that everyone knew they were wrong and felt convinced by the words and presence of Jesus? Perhaps in the same way that the temple guards in chapter seven had said, “No one had ever spoken like that before.”
Do you think the older men were wiser in the Scriptures, or possibly more aware of their sins than the younger ones? Maybe both?
Then he resumed his bent position to write again on the ground. One by one, from the largest to the smallest, the people quietly slipped away until Jesus and the woman were left alone. Straightening up again, Jesus asked her: “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
She replied, “No one, sir.” “Then I do not condemn you either,” said Jesus. “Go now and sin no more.” This is an example of how Jesus forgives all sin. He did not sentence the adulterous woman to death; he also did not say that since he had come, his adulterous act was no longer a sin. On the contrary, He openly revealed his sin when he told him: “Go away and sin no more”.
Based on the Law of God, this woman had committed a sin that required the sentence of death. However, Jesus, who was also God, had the authority to forgive this woman’s sin, which he did. However, the death sentence for this woman was a commandment from God that had to be carried out, and not even Jesus could break the commandments.
So, some think that only a few days later, Jesus died in his place on the cross fulfilling the requirements of the Law in his name.
The sin of the adulterous woman was forgiven by Almighty God, never to be remembered again. (Complete forgiveness and eternal life with him). What a wonderful and saving plan!
Jesus didn’t just die for the sins of this woman. Anyone who accepts him as his savior can receive full forgiveness and eternal life. Like the adulterous woman, her death on the cross fulfilled the Law for all who will follow it.
While we as Christians cannot forgive sin, we should not be so quick to judge, that is God’s role, not ours. We must pray, offer guidance, and show compassion. This is not always easy, but it is an example of how the Church is supposed to operate.
Let’s take a look at what this story teaches us about the actions of Jesus and the adulterous woman:
The trap
Jesus has been teaching in the temple, but now his enemies bring a clear challenge, designed to embarrass Jesus and get him into trouble.
If Jesus told them to stone her according to the Law of Moses, it would be reported to the Roman government, which did not allow the Jews to execute their own criminals. If he lets her go, he could be charged with breaking the law.
Jesus’ opponents often tried to trap him (Mark 3:2; 10:2). This was similar to his opponents’ challenge on whether the Jews should pay taxes to Caesar (Matthew 22:15-22). It was a trick, a trap, to turn the authorities and the people against Jesus. Jesus’ enemies had concocted a “no win” predicament for him, at least that’s what they thought.
(See John 8:3-6) What might be the consequence if he supported stoning? What could be the consequence if he said not to stone her?
If Jesus were to say that the woman should be stoned, he would be going against his long-standing reputation for showing mercy to the broken and dishonest. But if Jesus said that she should not be stoned, he could be accused of teaching against the law of Moses and undermining the social order.
Hypocrisy behind the trap
It is clear that this was a “trap”. However, there were some serious legal problems with the test case of the Jews:
1. Caught in the act.
It was clear to the accusers that the woman had been caught in the actual act of adultery. This is not easy to do. Finding a man and a woman in the same room may not be enough. Careful planning must have been done to catch the pair. And to catch Jesus. This was not an innocent inquiry to a rabbi about how to apply the law of Moses.
2. They only brought the woman.
Where was the man? The law specifically establishes:
There was something fishy about the accusation.
Although the scribes and Pharisees were not wrongly accusing this adulterous woman, their purpose was not to justify the law, otherwise they would have brought the man as well. He had broken the law just as much as she.
The law required that both be stoned to death.
They were just using the woman as a trap, hoping to fool Jesus. The Romans did not allow Jews to carry out executions, so:
If he had ordered her to stone her, they would have reported it to the Romans.
If he had said not to stone her, they would accuse him of breaking the Law of Moses.
3. Stoning
It was not specified for all cases of adultery. The Law of Moses does not specify stoning for all cases of adultery (although it might be implied), but only in the case where a betrothed virgin was caught in adultery, in which case both parties would be stoned (Deuteronomy 22:23-24). .
Death by adultery was rarely carried out. In fact, the most common punishment for adultery in Jewish society in Jesus’ day was not death, but divorce and financial compensation for the adulterer’s own husband.
The religious leaders thought they had set the perfect trap. They called him teacher, pretending to be respectful. But flattery never works with Jesus, and it didn’t work then. In the rush and intensity of the moment, they pressed him for his answer.
write on the ground
The accusers demanded an answer, but Jesus did not immediately respond. Jesus leaned down and began to write on the ground with his finger. When they continued to question him, he straightened up and said to them: If any of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at him. He again he bent down and wrote on the ground.
However, one thing is clear. Jesus did not answer them immediately. Instead, he was silent. And the silence was deafening. As the teacher, the Son of God, the man of perfect speech, and the very Word of God, perhaps he was displaying the timeless wisdom of Proverbs 29:11, which says: The fool utters all his mind; but the wise keep it until later.
Jesus did not. Why? We can’t be sure. But think of it this way. This period of shocking silence gave these men the opportunity to drop their case. This silence gave their conscience a chance to speak before they were embarrassed before the crowd. But the hypocrites and fools that they were, they persisted. They were the blind leaders, John says that they “continued asking him.” So he got up and gave them a very surprising answer.
Actually, he also gave them a third option. They could easily have stepped forward to believe in him and receive forgiveness of sins. But they didn’t. And as they quietly, slowly walked away, Jesus leaned down to write again in the sand.
cast the first stone
So how did Jesus answer them? What did he say he? Did he give a complicated and legal answer? No; he gave a very simple answer that spoke directly to his conscience. He said: “Whoever is innocent, let him go ahead and throw the first stone.” This was an amazing response.
First, Jesus upheld the Law of Moses. He accepted the woman’s guilt and recognized the appropriate consequence, death by stoning. He didn’t deny it. But at the same time, he expanded the force of the Law to include a mention of the sins of the accusers as well. By doing this, he prevented the execution from taking place. This not only extended mercy to the woman, but prevented any violation of Roman civil law.
Jesus was not making sinless perfection a requirement for stoning the woman and enforcing the law. If that were the case, then no one could carry out the law of Moses. Everyone has sinned, and the sinners were responsible for carrying out the law.
Jesus was not making sinless perfection a requirement for stoning the woman and enforcing the law. So what is Jesus saying here?
It may have hinted at the fact that the eyewitness(es) were mysteriously absent. Who saw the sin? If the only witness to this sin was the man who was also involved, then that person deserved to be stoned at the same time and was a disqualified witness. How shocking this would be if he were one of the Pharisees!
If this were not the case, then did the Pharisees trust the testimony of the man involved? If so, then they were covering up his sin to serve their own purposes, and they were guilty of it.
If nothing else, Jesus may be alluding to various sins, adultery or otherwise, that were hidden among these men, sins that would disqualify them from carrying out the execution, sins of which they themselves could be accused. And perhaps these men worried that Jesus might start calling out his sins in public, to his embarrassment.
This verse is often pointed to by liberals to invalidate…