but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
At first I thought this would be a wonderful lesson from Jesus on how to deal with impossible questions. Similar to the story when Jesus was asked "Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?" (Matthew 22:15-22), Jesus was caught in "no-win" situations where either a "yes" or a "no" answer would get hm into trouble. The question was a trap by the Pharisees (and the teachers of the law) to either discredit Jesus' moral authority (thus diminishing his popularity), or to get him into trouble with the Roman law (thus landing him in court). In this story with the woman caught in adultery, he diffused the highly charged atmosphere by redirecting the angry mob's focus on his writing on the ground - it is entirely speculative as to exactly what he was writing. Then he addressed the question with a third possible answer: let the person without guilt execute God's judgement on another person. Jesus was not condoning the act of adultery. Adultery was especially addressed in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:14). Moses' law prescribed the severe punishment of death for both the man and the woman (Deuteronomy 22:22-24). Stoning seemed to be the preferred choice of capital punishment. It is worth noting that this law applied to a particular situation where a man slept with a woman already engaged to another man. The purpose of the law was to "purge evil from Israel". Jesus certainly knew that the law was about sexual purity and the sanctity of marriage - both of which was God's design for humanity. However, he also knew that God's greater design for man was to keep from all impurity in order that we may approach the holy (perfectly pure) God. Who is without sin (Romans 3:23)? Who is not under God's condemnation (Romans 6:23)? The accusers of the adulterous woman understood that. They left without casting the stones in their hands. It is sad that they left without knowing the Savior who would eventually bear their sins on the cross.
I also learned this morning that this passage has some controversy whether it should be included in the bible! See this article from Christianity Today. So for the first time I noticed that this section was marked off in the biblegateway.com NIV translation.
So these are my take home lessons:
- Praise God that Jesus has born our sins on the cross!
- When caught in no-win situations, stay calm, ask the Holy Spirit for wisdom, love as Jesus loved - even the accusers, look behind the issue - there is usually a moral dimension to it.
- Forgiveness is always the better way!
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