Sermon Discussion Questions:

1. Read through John 7:53-8:11 together. Pray. Why do you think this story is so well known? What grips you about it?

2. Are you prone to viewing the woman in this story, automatically, in a sympathetic light? How does she serve us as a warning?

3. Why are the Pharisees a greater warning to us? Why is "spiritual pride" so dangerous? Read: "It is by spiritual pride that the mind defends and justifies itself in other errors and defends itself against light by which it might be corrected and reclaimed. The spiritually proud man thinks he is full of light already and feels that he does not need instruction, so he is ready to ignore the offer of it."

4. Are you free to repeat Jesus' words to the woman to others when they sin against you?

The first words out of Satan’s mouth: Did God really say…’You shall not eat of any of the trees in the garden?”

That is the exact opposite of what God said: “You shall eat of any tree…except one.”

Satan loves to invert God’s words. He can take “in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die” and turn it into: “You shall not surely die…you will become like God.”

If your right hand causes you to sin, try using your left hand. If that causes you to sin too…well, if God gave you hands that cause you to sin, then He must not be that bothered by it. For it is better to enjoy this life with two hands than be morbidly concerned about the next. - Matt 5:30, inverted

Come to me all who conquer and are capable, and I will give you more to do. Take my yoke upon you and shut up and listen to me, for I am critical and exacting in heart, and you will find work for your souls. For my yoke is punishing, and my burden is overwhelming—good luck. - Matt 11:28-30, inverted

For God was so frustrated with the world that He sent His only Son to whip them into shape, so that whoever sucks it up and flies straight would not perish, but earn a stay of execution…for now. - John 3:16, inverted

They went each to his own house, 1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 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. 7 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.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 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. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” - John 7:53-8:11

Should This Be in the Bible?

You will notice that this story has brackets around it with a short preamble that says: “The earliest manuscripts do not include 7:53-8:11.” What does that mean?

Manuscripts refer to early copies of different books of the Bible. And in the earliest copies of the gospel of John, this story isn’t included. I was reading a commentary written by an early church Father from the 4th century, and as he writes, he seamlessly skips from John 7:52 to John 8:12 (remember, chapters and verses were not added till much, much later.) In some manuscripts, this story appears in different places in John’s gospel—sometimes earlier in chapter 7, sometimes added to the very end of the gospel, and sometimes in the gospel of Luke. If we cut the story out, and read John 7 together with the rest of John 8, the story seems to flow rather naturally—it appears that Jesus is having one discussion with the Pharisees and chief priests during the Feast of Booths. This has led to the consensus that this story was not originally present in John’s gospel, but was added in later.

However, there are good reasons for understanding this story to be genuine. Papias, a direct disciple of the apostle John writes of this story in his own writings “Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord”, written at the end of the 1st century. In the 3rd century, a document on church order Didascalia, records this story as well. In the 4th century, Jerome reports in his writings that the story now found in John 7:53 was to be found in its usual place in “many Greek and Latin manuscripts” in Rome and the Latin West during the late 4th Century. And both Augustine and Ambrose in the 4th and 5th centuries were concerned that this story was being excluded from the gospels because faithless individuals were fearful that this might encourage wives into adultery! (Augustine, De Adulterinis Conjugiis, 2:6–7)

So, where does that leave us. It appears that this story really happened, was a real event that took place in the life of Christ, but as the church copied the manuscripts, there was some confusion about where this story fit in. When recording the biography of someone, the biographer may sometimes move events around in different chronology to help craft their narrative. This week I finished a Alan Jacobs’ biography of C.S. Lewis, and it opens with a story of Lewis immediately before he began writing The Chronicles of Narnia, before flashing back to his early childhood. This story seems to be a genuine story of Christ, yet there is uncertainty about where it fits in the chronology of the life of Christ. But that is not an issue of truthfulness, but of location.

Johannes Brenz, a German Lutheran and a successor to Martin Luther, after retelling many of the arguments that I just mentioned, writes: “So it seems that it was not written by John but was added here from some other source. Whoever it is who wrote it, it certainly deserved to be saved from extinction. For it teaches beautifully that all human beings, however righteous they may seem to be, are, before God’s judgment, equally guilty of sin with those who are obviously unrighteous profligates

Three People: The Woman, The Pharisees, and Jesus

The Woman

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” - John 8:3-5

The scene is dramatic. Early morning light fills the temple. Jesus walks into the temple and immediately people gather around him. He takes a seat and begins to teach. It sounds like an idyllic scene: a holy man in a holy place giving holy teaching. And into this Thomas Kinkade painting, a the Pharisees and scribes come charging in and throw a woman at Jesus’ feet.

“This woman” they say was caught in the act of adultery. We can only speculate how the Pharisees apprehended her or came to learn of her infidelity. Maybe the wife returned home to find the woman with her husband and fled to the Pharisees for help. Maybe the Pharisees knew this woman had a reputation, maybe she was a prostitute, and they simply followed her till they found her perpetrating the act. We do not know. But she is caught, red-handed—in the act—is she even fully clothed right now? Does she still have wine on her breath? A harlot is brought into the holy place, to the holy man, in the midst of his holy teaching.

What will he do?

The Pharisees make it clear what he should do. “In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.”

And that is true. Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22 both teach that this woman should be stoned to death.

At no point in the story does the woman deny what she did. At no point does anyone stand up for her, claiming that she isn’t an adulteress. Not even Jesus claims that this woman is being brought forward on false charges. This story is one of the most famous stories in the entire Bible. And we are so familiar with it that we may too quickly glide over the nature of this woman’s sin. If you have experienced the pain of marital infidelity, you know how devastating adultery is. This woman has participated in the destruction of a marriage, of possibly an entire family.

Sin destroys. One of the ways that Satan works in our hearts is to convince us that sin isn’t that bad, isn’t that dangerous. Destruction almost never comes like a bomb, but more like termites. A slow degradation over time that brings about a collapse.

The only thing that stands between this woman and the judgment her sins have earned her…is Jesus.

The first lesson we are to glean from this story is: we are that woman.

Maybe you haven’t committed infidelity. Maybe your sins don’t garner as much box office headlines, but all of us could be thrown before the Lord and told: The Law says that such a person like this deserves death.

In the Old Testament, Israel’s sins were frequently portrayed as spiritual adultery. Ezekiel 16.

The Pharisees

The Pharisees are the ultra-conservative religious sect of their day. They are the fundamentalists. They are the ones who take the Bible literally, seriously, even the hard bits. They are the ones who stand up against the liberalizing and watering-down of the Word of God by other Jewish religious sects, like the Sadducees. The scribes are a professional class, usually associated with the Pharisees. It is their job to copy the Law, to memorize, to teach the Law, to count the very letters and spaces in each copy to insure everything was correct. They are the seminary professors and Bible teachers of the day.

When they ask him, “So what do you say?” It appears like they are pinning Jesus into a corner. “This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him,” (John 8:6a). He can either show mercy, or He can uphold the Law. But it is even more complicated. Did you ever wonder why the Jews, at the end of the gospel, require the approval of the Romans to execute Jesus? With Roman occupation, the Jews were not permitted to carry out capital punishment. That is why they coerce Pilate into crucifying Jesus and not killing him themselves. Thus the question here is not only a question of whether Jesus will be forgiving or just, the question is similar to whether or not one should pay taxes to Caesar. If Jesus concedes that the woman should be stoned, then they would have a charge to bring against the Romans against Jesus, that he is an insurrectionist who isn’t living peaceably under their law.

So, Jesus is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. If He denies that the woman should be stoned, He violates Moses; if He teaches that she should be stoned, He violates Rome. On the first, he loses his credibility as a teacher, on the second he loses his freedom to continue to walk around as a free man.

It is a sophisticated trap laid by the scribes and Pharisees. Why are they laying this trap? Because they are serious about the Bible, serious about the Law, and this Jesus guy keeps doing and saying things that seem to be at odds with the Law! Like, healing people on the Sabbath, teaching people that they should honor Him the way they honor the Father—these are (from their perspective) clear violations of the Law and they are people who are serious about the Law.

But…are they?

If you go back and read the passages from Leviticus and Deuteronomy, you’ll notice that something is wrong with this picture, and maybe you have already noticed it: where is the man?? It takes two people to commit adultery. And in both of those passages from Moses we are told that both parties—man and woman—are to be put to death for this sin, never just the woman. Where did the Pharisees get the idea that only the woman is culpable?

In Greco-Roman culture, if women committed adultery, it was a heinous crime. But men? Well, they were far more lenient towards men. And this pagan permissiveness towards male sexual impropriety—ironically—seems to have seeped into these ultra-orthodox Jews who have conveniently failed to bring the other criminal in the crime.

You see: the Pharisees don’t care about this woman, about the marriage she just helped blow up, or even the Law they claim to be so serious about. All they care about is silencing Jesus…which is really another way of saying: it is all about them.

Think about this: why do the Pharisees hate Jesus so much? Why are they so intent on murdering him? When Jesus heals the paralytic on the Sabbath in John 5—which becomes the catalyst for their decision to kill Jesus—why aren’t they willing to listen to Jesus’ argument He gives and say: Huh, maybe we are wrong?

Pride. Black, diabolical, theologically orthodox, pride. To admit they were wrong about their interpretation of the Sabbath, about their snap judgment on Jesus, would require humility.

Sinclair Ferguson: “There is a kind of orthodoxy in which the several loci of systematic theology, or stages of redemptive history, are all in place, but that lacks the life of the whole, just as arms, legs, torso, head, feet, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth may all be present—while the body as a whole lacks energy and perhaps life itself. The form of godliness is not the same as its power.”

You can be prepared to defend doctrine till your teeth hurts…and not be a Christian. If your heart is metallic, harsh, critical, happier to point out the sins in others more than the sin in yourself, then you are in the grip of spiritual pride.

Alexander Whyte, the Scottish theologian, warned of what he called “sanctification by vinegar” that hardens someone into something that mirrors godliness, but lacks the sweetness of Christ.

Jonathan Edwards was a pastor and theologian in the 1700’s in New England. During his ministry there was a remarkable revival that broke out, sometimes called The Great Awakening. And he wrote an entire book about it, and about the blessings and difficulties that come with this kind of revival. And here is one passage very pertinent to our text:

The first and worst cause of errors that abound in our day and age is spiritual pride. This is the main door by which the devil comes into the hearts of those who are zealous for the advancement of Christ. It is the chief inlet of smoke from the bottomless pit to darken the mind and mislead the judgement.

Pride is the main handle by which he has hold of Christian persons and the chief source of all the mischief that he introduces to clog and hinder a work of God. Spiritual pride is the main spring or at least the main support of all other errors. Until this disease is cured, medicines are applied in vain to heal all other diseases.

It is by spiritual pride that the mind defends and justifies itself in other errors and defends itself against light by which it might be corrected and reclaimed. The spiritually proud man thinks he is full of light already and feels that he does not need instruction, so he is ready to ignore the offer of it.

On the other hand, the humble person is like a little child who easily receives instruction. He is cautious in his estimate of himself, sensitive as to how liable he is to go astray. If it is suggested to him that he is going astray, he is most ready to check into the matter.

This is our greatest danger, by far. Without minimizing the destruction of adultery, the sin of the Pharisees here is far more deadly. Jesus elsewhere told the Pharisees that prostitutes and tax collectors will get into heaven before they do because at least a prostitute acknowledges she is a sinner.

Note: if you are a Pharisee to Pharisees, you are still a Pharisee.

Jonathan Edwards’ diagnosis of spiritual pride—what does it look like?

• Spiritual Pride finds faults in others
• ministers in a harsh spirit
• is overly concerned with pretenses and appearances
• is offended very easily
• is arrogant towards God and man
• is hungry for attention
• neglects others

Questions to ask yourself:

• What types of sin make me outraged? Do I believe my sins deserve less judgment?
• Am I happy to point out other people’s flaws, but defensive of my own?
• Am I the biggest sinner I know?

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. - Gal 6:1

Jesus

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. - John 8:6Sor

What is Jesus doing as the Pharisees question him? He stoops down and writes in the sand. We aren’t told what Jesus is writing or why, so we are left to speculate. Some people think that Jesus is writing out the ten commandments, or writing out the specific sins of the Pharisees. John Calvin thinks that Jesus is demonstrating to the Pharisees how insignificant they are, He sees through their ruse. It is the equivalent of Jesus pulling his phone out and playing Candy Crush while the Pharisees are yelling.

We aren’t sure what Jesus was writing, but we do know that the Pharisees are discussing the Law with Jesus. Moses teaches us that the Law was written with finger of God upon tablets of stone. Here, Jesus writes with His finger upon the dust. The covenant that God made with Moses—which includes the death penalties that the Pharisees are alluding to—was a temporary covenant. The book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus came to inaugurate the New Covenant, a better covenant.

There was always a tension found in the Old Testament between justice and mercy. God is slow to anger and abounding steadfast love and mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression to the thousandth generation…but who will by no means clear the guilty. How do you resolve that tension? Or, consider this: what is the penalty for adultery? Death. Yet…when King David commits adultery (and murder!), he isn’t stoned to death. He repents and seeks the Lord for forgiveness. Was that right?

Or, we could go back even further: God told Adam and Eve that in the day they ate of the fruit, they would die. Yet, they are not killed immediately.

Jesus resolves the tension.

“whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” - Rom 3:25-26

Jesus is here to enact a New Covenant, with a New Law. The passage from Deuteronomy that commands adulterers to be executed contains the phrase “purge the evil person from among you.” That phrase is used by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 5:13, but not in regards to execution, excommunication. A man is placed under church discipline and Paul believes this is how New Covenant Christians fulfill the “purge the evil person from among you” concept today. But even in cases of church discipline, as Jesus teaches in Matthew 18:15-20, the sinner is given the chance to repent, and even when they do not and are removed from the church, the ultimate aim is always their salvation—we remove them that they might be saved! And the man who is excommunicated in 1 Corinthians for his sin is restored through repentance in 2 Corinthians!

So, Jesus is not violating Moses by refusing to stone this woman. He is not denying her sin. The Pharisees are just blind to the fulfillment that Jesus is bringing about, the New Covenant.

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.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 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 8:7-9

“As God addresses them, their sins loom so big and they become so alarmed and frightened that their own sins now occupy them and cause them to forget about others and to begin to think that in comparison with themselves other sinners are pure saints. Thus they stand there thunderstruck. They feel as though the lightning had shone and flashed into their hearts, filling them with pure light and revealing their innermost thoughts. As their hearts are opened like a book, they forget about this woman entirely and begin to imagine that their sins are inscribed on their foreheads and that everything they have ever done can be seen on their noses. Not one of them has the courage to look at the other.” - Luther

10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” - John 8:10-11

The order of these words really matter.

“Neither do I condemn you —> Go, from now on sin no more.”

Not: “If you stop sinning, I won’t condemn you”

Nor did he say, “I don’t condemn you, so continue to sin”