WWUTT 876 Jesus and the Woman Caught in Adultery?

John 8 verses 1 -11 is one of the most famous stories in the Bible, the story of the woman who was caught in adultery and was brought before Jesus. Now while it's a nice story, John didn't write it when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the Word of God in context, promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. Well, I apologize for how weak my voice is going to be today. I think it's all this up and down in the weather. Here in Kansas, we haven't been going through a gradual change in temperatures.

It's just 70 degrees one day and 30 the next. In fact, that's the difference between today's forecast and yesterday. We had a 70 degree Sunday and we're in the 30s today. So I think this has been wreaking havoc on my respiratory system.

We'll see if I'm able to get through an entire lesson today. We're going to look at the section that goes from John chapter 7, verse 53 to chapter 8, verse 11. And I'd only be spending one day on this lesson anyway.

Why the Pericope Adulterae Does Not Fit John’s Gospel

Here's what we read starting in the last verse of chapter 7. 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? They said this to test him that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in 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. In your Bible, when you open up this text, you probably notice right before the start of this section, there is a mention in double brackets that the earliest manuscripts do not include John chapter 7, verse 53 through chapter 8, verse 11.

And then when you get to the actual text portion of it, there's double brackets from verse 53 all the way to the end of chapter 8, verse 11, indicating to the reader that John is probably not the author of this section of John.

And I'm one of those persons that falls on the side of believing that the evidence is pretty concrete that John did not write this. The the earliest manuscripts in which this section of scripture, which is also referred to as the peripate adultery, the the earliest manuscripts that include this section don't appear until the early three hundred.

So you're talking the fourth century is when we have the earliest editions of this part of scripture appearing in the text. Now, there are mentions of it earlier than that. One of those places actually shows up at about the mid third century in a document that is referred to as the did a Scalia.

And there in the in the writing, it talks about the way that bishops should consider those who are repentant or elders, how they should receive a repentant person into the church. And in the did a Scalia, it says that if you turn such a person away, if you will not receive a repentant person back into the congregation, you do not obey our savior and our God to do as he also did with her that had sinned, whom the elders set before him and leaving the judgment in his hands departed.

But he, the searcher of hearts, asked her and said to her, have the elders condemned thee, my daughter? She said to him, no, Lord. And he said unto her, go your way. Neither do I condemn thee in him, therefore, our savior and king and God be your pattern.

Oh, bishops. So there was obviously some kind of oral tradition regarding this particular story, but it wasn't written by John. And even textual critics will look at the writing style and the word choice of what we have in these 12 verses.

And they even show how John does not word things like this in the rest of his gospel. So it even looks out of place. And we I don't think we have to go back to original Greek or Latin to see those differences.

I think that you can see that even here in English, that it just looks a little bit different than the rest of what we've read so far in John and what we're going to read coming up after this. It doesn't seem to fit.

It wasn't written by John. We don't know who wrote it. Now it's a nice story and it doesn't compromise the character of Jesus in any way. So I think this is one of the reasons why it's survived and still remains in our Bible to this day.

I'm satisfied enough with having a mention in the Bible like this, like your ESV translation or your NASB or NIV that that will put in brackets. So kind of a caution that the earliest manuscripts do not include this particular section.

I'm content with that as long as when we're studying this, we understand the the caveat that John didn't write it. And so it cannot be received as apostolic apostolically authoritative. But nonetheless, there's still scriptural truth here that I think that we can glean.

And that's what it is that I'm going to present today as we continue in this. So let's come to chapter seven, verse 53. It's a very short verse. They went each to his own house. And remember, this is part of the section that we believe was not actually written by John.

So let's let's consider what kind of a break in the narrative this is. Chapter seven, verse 53 through chapter eight, verse two. It says 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. So if we were to ignore this section, chapter seven, verse 53 through chapter eight, verse 11, and we were to pick up in chapter eight, verse 12, leaving off at the end of chapter seven where we did and then picking up again in chapter eight, verse 12, that actually flows so much better like this.

You can, in the flow of things, just feel how John seven, 53 through chapter eight, verse 11 is just out of place, particularly when you consider John eight, 20, where it says these words, Jesus spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple.

But no one arrested him because his hour had not yet come. That was exactly where Jesus was teaching at during the Feast of Booth. So we're still continuing that story. There isn't some sort of a break where now it's another day and the Pharisees come and bring this woman who had been caught in adultery before Jesus.

That wouldn't have happened here, especially in this place where Jesus had been teaching near the treasury. It's extremely odd to think that the Pharisees would have brought a woman caught in the act of adultery into the temple, into the court of women, or an area that was adjacent to the court of women, which is where the treasury would have been, and drop this woman right there in front of Jesus and that they would not have brought this woman there.

She would not have been allowed in the temple. And so it's odd behavior for the Pharisees, for one. But then again, it's just kind of a weird break in the progression of the narrative that we had been reading in chapter seven.

This is still part of the same discourse. And I'll talk about this a little bit more tomorrow when we get into chapter eight, verse 12, about how some of the things that Jesus says here in the continuing discourse is the same as what he had said in chapter seven.

And this is a pattern that we've seen with John's writing throughout the gospel, how John will have Jesus say one thing and then the Pharisees or the people will argue about it. And then Jesus will say the same thing again, but in a slightly different way to show how they don't understand or what it is they need to understand.

And so Jesus is doing that in John eight, which makes sense if we still consider this as part of the same discourse in the narrative of what John is presenting at the end of the Feast of Booths. But it's a weird break if we're throwing in like a new day in which Jesus is teaching in the temple again.

After having gone to the Mount of Olives, he comes back to the temple. This woman is brought in the act of adultery, and it just it's just kind of an odd break in the action. It's it does not go with John's writing style.

Now, it may have been something like Mark would do, but not so much the way that John considers the whole purpose of writing this particular gospel and focusing on those things that Jesus had said less on events and more on the things that Jesus said.

So we go on here in chapter eight, verse three, the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and placing her in the midst. They said to Jesus, teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.

Now, in the law of Moses now, sorry, in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say? So what would that reference have been to? Moses says in the law that we should stone such women.

Well, in Deuteronomy, chapter twenty two, verse twenty two, it says, if a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die. The man who lay with the woman and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel going on in verse twenty three.

If there is a betrothed virgin and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring both of them out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death with stones. The young woman, because she did not cry for help, though she was in the city and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife.

So you shall purge the evil from your midst. So here's what we have in Deuteronomy, chapter twenty two, verses twenty two through twenty four. Those that are caught in the act of adultery are to be stoned to death.

So here the Pharisees are saying this woman is supposed to be executed. That's what it says in the law of Moses. So what do you say about this? And it says in verse six, this they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.

Now, that's obviously in, you know, that's keeping with the character of the Pharisees. We've seen them do things like that where they're trying to catch Jesus in some sort of catch twenty two. But again, it's odd that they would have desecrated the temple court in this way to have brought this woman in who had been caught in the act of adultery and dropped him down before Jesus.

Also, when you consider his reaction to this is a little bit odd. You think of the setting where they are and how did Jesus react to the woman being brought before him? It says that Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the ground, wrote in what?

Like what was he writing in the stone? It was a stone courtyard, wasn't dirt. And that's the way that this story is often depicted. Like you even go to the The Passion of the Christ movie Mel Gibson directed, starring Jim Caviezel.

It's it's Jesus not in the temple is the way that they portray it there. But Mary Magdalene bought brought before Jesus and dropped before him. And he's he kind of draws a line in the sand when you watch it in Mel Gibson's version.

But it's dirt. It's a dirt ground. That's what he's drawing in. But that's not the way it would have been if he was in the temple, particularly by the treasury, which would have been adjacent to the court of women.

Then it would have been a stone ground. So he wasn't writing on. He couldn't have been writing in the dirt. Now, I like the picture. It's very interesting to me, in fact, especially when you consider that in Matthew chapter five, when Jesus begins preaching in the Sermon on the Mount, it says that he went up on the mountain and he sat down.

And Matthew is actually showing that God is speaking to his people again. The last time that God addressed his people was in Exodus chapter 20, and it was the giving of the Ten Commandments. But the Israelites did not want to hear the voice of God.

It frightened them. And so since Israel had rejected this relationship with God and they wanted to go back to Moses talking to God and then Moses, you tell us what God said because Israel rejected that, then you had the establishment of the priesthood.

You had the Aaronic priesthood and then the Levitical priesthood. And so this was the last time God had addressed all of his people. And when he did so, he was speaking from a mountain. And so when Matthew is showing that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the law and the prophets, that's what he's been detailing in those first several chapters there of the book of Matthew.

And he does several times throughout the gospel, in fact. But in Matthew chapter five, it says he went up on the mountain and he sat down. He's showing God is speaking to his people again, and he's doing this as he did before from a mountain.

And so when I when I think of that, the way that Matthew used the mountain to show that God was speaking to his people again from a mountain here, I like the illustration of Jesus drawing on the ground, regardless of whether he was drawing in dirt or he was just kind of etching his finger on the stone.

I love the picture because how did God give his law to his people in Exodus? He wrote it in the stone. And as it's commonly thought of, God with his finger writing in the stone, the law which Moses then brought down from the mountain and gave to the people.

So here are the Pharisees saying, according to the law of Moses, we're supposed to stone such women. And Jesus responds by bending down on the ground and writing in the stone with his finger. I love that because it's like, yeah, I wrote that law.

It's kind of like what it is that Jesus is showing to the Pharisees. So regarding this particular story, that's one thing I really, really like. And in there's that part of me that really wants this to be from John, because John is just that clever, you know, as the leading of the Holy Spirit has brought him to write this, that he would show Jesus writing on the ground in the stone because Jesus is the one who wrote the law that the Pharisees are trying to use to catch Jesus in this trap in verse seven.

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. Now, I think it's important here, again, recognizing that this wasn't written by John, but it's important here to understand what is being said.

It is not saying that no one can throw stones if they as long as they are without sin. That's not what Jesus would have been saying, because otherwise, when it came to this law that had been given to Israel in Deuteronomy 22 verses 22 through 24, no one could ever actually carry it out because who could actually say that they are without sin?

The point that Jesus was trying to make wherever this text originates from, the point that is being made here is that Jesus would have been saying, let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.

It's almost as like Jesus is going, which one of you guys is the one who slept with her? Like, how do you know this woman was caught in adultery had to have been one of you. So if you're that guy who is without the same sin that you're bringing in front of us to have executed, that guy needs to be the one to cast the stone.

This is a wisdom response that Jesus is making here. Why is this woman the guilty one? Where's the dude? The law of Moses says, if a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both shall die. So where's the guy?

It's got to be one of you guys because she's been caught in the act of adultery. So let him who's without this sin, who's not down here with her, let him be the first to throw the stone. And so realizing that they couldn't go, they couldn't proceed with this little catch 22 because they had now been made foolish before the eyes of the people.

It says once more, chapter eight, verse eight, 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.

Now, when it says left alone, it probably doesn't mean it's just him and her there. It would have been Jesus and his apostles who were there. But but that's still odd. Again, it doesn't fit the narrative, because right after we get through with this, we read in verse 12.

Again, Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. So the Pharisees said to him, where are the Pharisees? They're gone.

According to the story in John, chapter eight, they walked out. They left. So there's no one there to listen to Jesus teach. And other than his disciples who would have still been there with Jesus. But Jesus continues to teach the people who are there.

So, again, that's why this little story, John, chapter seven, verse 53 through chapter eight, verse 11, just simply doesn't fit with the rest of the narrative that John has been presenting here regarding this discourse that is happening at the end of the Feast of Booths.

This isn't a different day. It's still the same day. If we're flowing from what we had been reading in chapter seven, it's just the story in chapter eight is introduced a different day. And it doesn't fit.

Again, it doesn't fit with the rest of the rest of the narrative. So when they heard Jesus say what he said and they realized that they could not make a spectacle out of him before the people, at least according to this oral tradition that we're considering today, it says that they went out and Jesus was left alone with a woman standing before him.

And Jesus stood up and said to her, woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? And she said, no one, Lord. And Jesus said, neither do I condemn you go. And from now on, sin no more. Now, this is certainly within the character of Jesus to say something like that.

It's the same thing that he said to the man at the pool at the healing pool in chapter five when he healed him on the Sabbath, healed a lame man, hadn't walked in decades. And Jesus heals him and he rolls up his mat and he walks away.

And Jesus says to the man when he encounters the man again in the temple, he says to him, now go and don't send any more less something worse should happen to you. So that's certainly within the character of Jesus to say such a thing.

And often this story is used to say we shouldn't judge anybody else. Let he who is without sin be the first to cast the stone. Well, you're taking that story out of context. And furthermore, it probably doesn't belong in the Bible anyway.

But but what Jesus is saying to the woman very plainly here is don't send anymore. What you have done is sin and what you deserve for this is death. But there's no one here that condemns you. And neither do I condemn you.

I tell you to go and not send anymore. Jesus saying your sins are forgiven. Go and do not send. And so that should be our pursuit as well as followers of Jesus Christ. We have been forgiven our sins and God is not holding our faults against us.

Praise the Lord for that, that our sins have been blotted out in the heavenly registry. And we stand before God as justified. And on that day when great books are open and people are judged by the works that they have done, we who are followers of Christ, it will be demonstrated that our works have been carried out in God.

So if you are a follower of Jesus, you must do the works that Jesus did and the things that he commanded us to do. But know that the sins that we have committed if we are in Christ have not been held against us.

They have been forgiven. They have been blotted out the way the scriptures put it. And we stand before God as justified. So now having been forgiven, let us walk as those who are forgiven and go out and sin no more.

Amen. So that's the conclusion of that section. And that's as much as we're going to spend on John 7 verse 53 through John chapter 8 verse 11. Tomorrow I'll pick up in chapter 8 verse 12. Let's conclude with prayer.

Forgiveness, Justification, and the Call to Sin No More

Our wonderful God, we thank you for the mercy and grace that you show us in Christ. And I pray that we would understand that being forgiven our sins does not mean that we can sin with impunity, that we can sin and just, you know, hey, I know God's going to forgive me for this.

It's easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission, right? That not be our attitude. But we understand as Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5, be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. And as Paul said to the Philippians, not that I've already attained this or I'm already perfect, but I seek to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

So being forgiven our sins, we do not fall into despair and being forgiven our sins. We no longer walk in sin, but we walk in righteousness. We walk in the grace of God that has been given to us through Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Convict us of our sins, knowing that when we ask forgiveness, you are faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, but then that we go and sin no more. Give us the desire to do the things of God and walk in godliness.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Gabriel Hughes is the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Find out more online at www .tt .com.