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John 7, 53, through chapter 8, verse 11. Jason's going to come and read this for us and then pray.
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John chapter 7, verse 53. They went each to his own house.
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But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple.
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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.
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And placing her in the midst, they said to him, Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.
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Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such a woman. So what do you say? This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.
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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,
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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.
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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.
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Jesus stood up and said to her, Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?
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She said, No one, Lord. And Jesus said, Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on, sin no more.
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Let's pray. Lord God, we are so grateful that you are a compassionate
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God. We're so grateful, Lord, that you don't deal with our sins as we deserve.
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But you are merciful. You are gracious. And Lord, we are especially thankful for the sacrifice of Christ, who bore our sin in his body on the cross.
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He became our substitute for sin. He was the propitiation for sin.
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He bore the wrath of God on our behalf. And Lord, because of him, we have life.
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And we are so thankful and so grateful. And Lord, as we continue to study the
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Gospel of John, and as we look upon Christ's words and his works, we pray that you would direct us.
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We pray that you would give us understanding of this text. Help us, Lord, to apply this truth to our lives, so that we might better obey you, better honor you, and glorify you.
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For you, Lord, are worthy. Thank you, in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, we arrive here at John 7, 53 through chapter 8, verse 11, at an episode that records a woman taken in adultery, who was brought before Jesus.
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The event, of course, is an effort on the part of the scribes and Pharisees in order to obtain some charge against Jesus, by which they could at least discredit him, but really what their desire was to be able to condemn him, even bring a capital offense against him.
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And so when our Lord addressed the situation, he revealed his wisdom in the way that he addressed them.
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He exposed their hypocrisy and their duplicity in trying to find fault with him. And in the process of exposing them, we read, of course, how the
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Lord spared this woman's life, even as he admonished her of her sins. Jason just read the account, so we'll not read it again as we work through it.
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We have to divide, however, this morning's message really into two parts. And the first part, the first half, may be rather technical.
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It may be a little overwhelming for some, but I really feel like we need to take this occasion to address this matter about the text itself.
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This passage lends itself to do that. Because the entire episode, beginning with John 7, 53, through verse 11, chapter 8, is disputed among scholars as to whether it was original with John's gospel when he penned.
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And it probably wasn't, by the way. And we'll probably have time next week, Lord willing, to point out that actually verse 12 of John chapter 8, verse 12, actually fits better right after John 7, 52, and that this episode was inserted at this place.
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And we'll explain why and how that came to pass in a few minutes. And so this gives us opportunity to speak about the nature of the
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Bible itself, particularly the New Testament, and how God in his providence has brought it down through the centuries and delivered it to us.
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It was a historic process. You know, that Bible you're holding in your hands didn't drop out of heaven last year when it was published.
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You know, God has preserved that for you down through the centuries. And so I want us to consider, and we'll be using this passage to consider the textual history of our
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Bibles, and again, particularly the New Testament. And so when we speak about our belief in the
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Bible, the Holy Bible as the written word of God, we are asserting, of course, that the
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Bible is inerrant, infallible, and authoritative in all that it states and claims.
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And so the scriptures themselves declare this, of course. All scripture is given by inspiration of God.
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It's profitable for doctrine, for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
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In other words, the way to live a life that pleases God. And Paul is writing to Timothy in this, so that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
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If a man knows the Bible thoroughly, then he is equipped to lead a church, is what he was telling
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Timothy. And then the Apostle Peter wrote of the Holy Scriptures and their inspiration.
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And we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
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In other words, you need to believe and obey the Bible until Jesus comes. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation.
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Man didn't devise it. The prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the
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Holy Spirit. And so the Bible itself claims its inspiration. But it's important that we understand when we speak of the inspired, infallible
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Holy Scriptures, we are speaking specifically of the documents as when they were originally penned.
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The original Gospel of John that John penned was inspired and infallible.
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God superintended that every word that John wrote was intended by God.
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So we talk about the writers of the scriptures like John, but really the author is
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God himself, it's God's word. And so God directly inspired and superintended the original writings of the biblical authors.
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And yes, we assert that as men copied and published those documents through the centuries, God through his providence did superintend and preserve them in wonderful ways so that we have his truth today.
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But herein lies the problem. We do not have any of the original documents available for us today, but we have copies and copies of copies and then translations of those copies.
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You have an English translation of many, many copies that were generated over the centuries.
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And as we consider the manuscript evidence, actually today we have a little over 6 ,000 manuscripts or texts of the
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Greek New Testament that were written and copied over the centuries, particularly from the time they were originally written up until a little after the invention of the printing press, which took place in 1439.
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It was early in the 1500s when hand copying of texts by scribes came to a conclusion.
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Over 6 ,000 Greek texts, either complete or partial manuscripts of the New Testament books.
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And if we also consider early Greek translations of New Testament texts, whether it be Coptic like Egyptian or Latin or Syriac, the
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Peshitta version, that kind of thing, if you take into consideration those old manuscripts, we have over 24 ,000 early copies or portions of our
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New Testament books. The earliest manuscript that we have in existence, it's believed, is in the
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John Rylands Library in Manchester, England. It's called the John Rylands Fragment. And it's just a little scrap of papyrus with some
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Greek words on it. And it contains a few verses from the
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Gospel of John, including John 18, 31 through 33, and 37 and 38.
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Five verses, and that's the total of that manuscript, which is noted by the abbreviation or the symbol
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P for papyrus, and then its manuscript number 52. The date proposed for this very small fragment is approximately
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A .D. 125. That's the oldest we have. In other words, it was a copy of John's Gospel, probably around 30 years after John originally penned the
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Gospel according to John. But of these more than 6 ,000 texts of Greek manuscripts of the
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New Testament, which were produced over a period of 1 ,500 years, no two manuscripts are identical.
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No two out of the 6 ,000 are identical. Because of the process of manuscript copying, variance between copies crept in through the flow and the transmission of historical documents, scribal transmission through the centuries.
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And so a scribe would maybe introduce an error, sometimes purposely a change to clarify.
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And once a scribe made a change from his exemplar, the text he was copying from, then his change was, of course, perpetuated in subsequent copies.
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And so over the centuries you had layers upon layers of variance entering the manuscript tradition.
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Now the process of copying and transmitting biblical books changed due to Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the so -called modern printing press, movable type, that kind of thing, in 1439.
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But the first Greek New Testament was printed. It was put together by a Roman Catholic priest or scholar.
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He was recognized by everyone as the greatest scholar in Europe at the time, Desiderius Erasmus. And prior to this printing of the
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Greek New Testament, all copies of the New Testament had been produced by the hand of scribes over many centuries.
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Now the scribe was a noble trade, always recognized as such. And some scribes were more meticulous than others.
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They were pretty precise. And now we're talking now more about New Testament rather than Old Testament Hebrew.
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The Old Testament Hebrew scribes were absolutely meticulous.
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They would be copying, say, an Old Testament book, and if they made a mistake, they didn't just scratch it out or erase it or put a mark through it.
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They burned the entire copy and started it over. I mean, they were meticulous.
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The Old Testament Hebrew text is an amazing, amazing document. But many scribes were not necessarily careful.
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And there was no perfect scribe. No two manuscripts are identical. There are variants between them.
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And the task of the textual critic, one formally trained in these matters, is to examine the various readings of the same passage from various manuscripts available and attempt to determine which reading best reflects the original document of the original writing.
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And so a textual critic, it's a science and it's an art as well.
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And there are some good ones and there are some not so good. Now, of course, we affirm the faithfulness and accuracy of the copies that we have available to us.
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It should be understood that the vast majority of variants between Greek manuscripts of the New Testament are of minor importance, most being spelling errors that were made by scribes.
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You know, there's not a week that goes by as I'm not looking up here at my text and I'm finding errors, copies, you know, errors and typos.
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And I try and correct them as I go through. But there was no perfect scribe, even though they would check and recheck.
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You know, these variants would enter into the tradition. It should also be recognized, however, that if you were able to identify two texts of the
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New Testament that were most divergent from one another in detail, there would still be no difference between them respecting what they teach.
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No major doctrine or even minor doctrine is affected by the presence of variants in the manuscript tradition.
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They all teach the same thing. And when all the variants of all the many manuscripts over the many centuries are considered, not one
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New Testament doctrine or teaching has changed or called into question. In other words, our
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Lord, our God has wonderfully preserved the Bible for us. The one you hold in your hands is the authoritative word of God.
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And so in all that I'm saying, I'm not in any way undercutting the authority and the accuracy of it.
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We have the word of God in our English translations before us. However, the modern work of textual criticism is a very important discipline.
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Textual scholars make determinations of how variants entered the manuscript tradition and when they did in their attempts to determine the precise content of the original documents.
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And so they have made determinations that some manuscripts are more true and accurate to those original writings than other manuscripts, so they give preference to some over others.
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And herein lies the reason why there are some differences here and there from one English translation to another. And just about all your
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Bibles will say, you know, some translations translate it this way.
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Some reading is not found in the oldest manuscripts. It's a very common editorial note that you'll find in a study
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Bible. Well, as we close this little introduction, this history of the transmission of our
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New Testament, let us be assured of this fact through the discovery and use of many older manuscripts.
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For example, when the King James Version was published in 1611, they only had about a dozen
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Greek texts available to them. We've got over 6 ,000 now. And through the discovery and use of many older manuscripts and more consistently applied principles of interpretation, the
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Greek text of the New Testament today is closer to the original than at any time since the first centuries of the
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Christian era. I can say that with confidence. The fact is God has given us a trustworthy text through his providence upon which our modern translations are based.
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However, the work of textual criticism continues today. Now, it's helpful to understand the process by which the scribes copied manuscripts to understand how these variants entered into the tradition.
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Variants between copies of the Greek New Testament can be better assessed when we understand how these scribes employed their work.
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Scribes would commonly work as individuals, copying their text as they looked upon the master text on the desk before them.
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Monks in monasteries down through the centuries would copy their text as they looked at their master and then they made a copy.
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Scribal work was hard work. Here's a description of the trade from an ancient writing, actually it's from Bruce Metzger writing about some comments an ancient scribe made.
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Something of the drudgery of copying manuscripts can be learned from the colophons or notes which scribes not infrequently placed at the close of their books.
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They put in their own personal note. A typical colophon found in many non -biblical manuscripts reveal in no uncertain terms what every scribe experienced.
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He who does not know how to write supposes it to be no labor, but though only three fingers write, the whole body labors.
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And a traditional formula appearing at the close of many manuscripts describes the physiological effects of prolonged labor at copying.
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Writing bows one's back, thrusts the ribs into one's stomach and fosters a general debility of the body.
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Tell you what, sitting at a computer for 12 hours a day would do that too, to a measure. In an
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Armenian, not Armenian, Armenian, you know the people from eastern Turkey, manuscript of the
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Gospels, a colophon complains that a heavy snowstorm was raging outside and that the scribe's ink froze.
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His hand became numb and the pen fell from his fingers. It's not surprising that a frequently recurring colophon in manuscripts of many kinds is the following comparison.
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As travelers rejoice to see their home country, so also is the end of a book to those who toil in writing.
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Other manuscripts close with an expression of gratitude. The end of a book, thanks be to God. It was difficult work and it was done in not necessarily the ideal conditions.
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However, even though the labor was difficult, the scribe valued his work and particularly those who copied the
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Holy Scriptures. And here a scribe describes how he viewed his responsibility.
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By reading the divine scriptures, the scribe wholesomely instructs his own mind and by copying the precepts of the
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Lord, he spreads them far and wide. What happy application, what praiseworthy industry to preach unto men by means of the hand, to untie the tongue by means of the fingers, to bring quiet salvation to mortals and to fight the devil's insidious wiles with pen and ink.
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For every word of the Lord written by the scribe is a wound inflicted on Satan. And so though seated in one spot, the scribe traverses diverse lands through the dissemination of what he has written.
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Man multiplies the heavenly words and in a certain metaphorical sense, if I may dare so to speak, three fingers are made to express the utterances of the
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Holy Trinity. Oh, sight glorious to those who contemplate it carefully. The fast -traveling reed pen writes down the holy words and thus avenges the malice of the wicked one who caused a reed to be used to smite the head of the
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Lord during his passion. Quite a comparison, isn't it? Imagine that, soldiers hitting on that crown of thorns with a reed and now he sees the reed as duplicating the word of God and disseminating it throughout the world.
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Commonly, however, rather than scribes laboring in monasteries, they performed their scribal work in scribal schools.
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They were publishing houses which were business ventures and for the text were very expensive, relatively rare, and it was big business.
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And so the scribe in a scribal school would often sit at a desk in a room while the master of the school would read the text out loud and the various scribes would write down a manuscript from what they heard.
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And sometimes they didn't hear well, which was a problem. And so many times manuscripts were copied in this fashion.
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And when one examines the various variants that are in the texts, Greek texts, one can assess in many cases the likely or original cause of the variant when first penned.
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And so variants can commonly be judged as either the result of faulty hearing or faulty sight on the part of the scribe.
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For example, the scribe was sitting at his desk, was writing his text, as the master scribe read the text, errors of hearing would frequently occur.
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These would often be spelling errors. For example, in the Greek language, there are vowels and combination of vowels called diphthongs that often had a similar or even identical sound.
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And a lot of the diphthongs, we have them in English too, O -U -A -I, sometimes
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A -E. In Greek, these vowel diphthongs often would have the long letter
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E sound. And so when you hear somebody reading it, you might put down a different spelling and you might have an entirely different word just because a couple letters are different.
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And most of the variants in the manuscript tradition are of this type, spelling errors.
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One more word may be helpful, by the way, before we move on from this, is that there are a number of evangelicals who espouse that the
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King James Version of the English Bible is the only translation that God has preserved without error to the present day.
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They're King James only people. And, you know, I know of churches that preach
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Christ. God bless them for that. And they're in this area, by the way, who advocate the
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King James Bible alone is the word of God. And so they argue, for example, that the
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King James translation was a reflection of a manuscript known as the
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Textus Receptus, Latin phrase. And so they think that's the only inerrant Greek text available.
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But actually the term Textus Receptus wasn't even coined until some years, 22 years after the
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King James Version was translated. And even 117 years after Erasmus first published his first Greek text on the printing press.
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And, in fact, the term Textus Receptus was actually a publisher blurb put in the forward or preface of a
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Greek text, advertising the Greek text by this publishing house. I put a paragraph in there describing that, and I'm not going to read it because of the time.
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But the point is that Textus Receptus was just a description of a
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Greek text that some publishers coined. And now it's viewed almost with religious fervor as though it were the only true inspired word of God that God has given us down through history.
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And it's just an error of understanding history and the nature of the way the
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Greek text has been transmitted to us. Now why do we bring all that up? Well, our passage here in John 7, 53 through chapter 8, verse 11 is one of the most well -known passages, not just a verse here or there, a phrase here or there, but passages that has been disputed as to whether or not it was originally in John's Gospel.
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The fact is that there is no record of it being found in John's Gospel at this point prior to a
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Greek text, I think it's before the 5th century AD. Although there are some references to the account, but they weren't necessarily at this place in John's Gospel.
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This passage is not found in the full Greek New Testament that we have available.
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The oldest full Greek New Testament is called this Codex, and Codex is another name for book,
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Codex Sinaticus, because it was found in a monastery on Mount Sinai by a
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German military officer named Tischendorf in the 19th century. And so it's called
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Codex Sinaticus. He got up one morning, he'd been staying there looking for old manuscripts.
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He got up in the morning, it was kind of cold, and there's monks there feeding the fire with old manuscripts.
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And he'd have to notice, you know, this looks valuable, this looks ancient. He tried not to give it away, but there was quite a bit of intrigue in gaining possession of this manuscript.
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And now it's on full display in the British Museum in London, and it's quite amazing.
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It's the oldest full New Testament Greek text that we have. Well, this
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John 753 through 812 is not in the Gospel of John in Codex Sinaticus, nor is it found in Codex Vaticanus.
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And that was a book, early Greek text, about the same time as the
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Codex Sinaticus. It's usually not regarded as highly as Codex Sinaticus.
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It was found in the Vatican library, been lost for 1 ,500 years, and it was found, and the passage is not in there either.
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And so the passage is found in a number of manuscripts. However, many of the manuscripts, the passage is actually set apart by the scribe by asterisks, or some other marks indicating the scribe himself had questioned as to whether or not the episode should be included at this point in the
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Gospel. There was a manuscript, however, there are some manuscripts that places this episode not here but in other places.
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For example, there's a manuscript that places this episode after John 21 -25.
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In other words, the last verse of the Gospel of John. The entire episode is put at the end of the
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Gospel of John. In another place, it's put down in another place in John 7.
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John 7, verse 36. And then there are a couple of other manuscripts where it has this story of the woman taking adultery put in Luke's Gospel, not
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John's Gospel. And one of those is at Luke 21 -38, and then the other one is put in after the conclusion of the
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Gospel of Luke. And so you have this episode kind of floating around, and we find it here, of course, in our
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Gospel. But it's always an indicator to set apart my Reformation Study Bible, the
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Bible I use, the English text. It's set apart by brackets, because it's recognized that this has some weak testimony as to whether or not
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John originally wrote it. As I'm working through some of my commentaries in John's Gospel, I was interested to find
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F .F. Bruce and Leon Morris, both in their commentaries. They jumped right from John 7 -52 to John 8 -12.
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They didn't even address it. And then I found a footnote, and both of them put their commentary in an appendix to the commentary.
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They addressed this episode on the woman caught in adultery. F .F. Bruce wrote these words about this passage.
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These 12 verses are ruled off from the preceding and following context in the NIV. They are relegated to a footnote in the
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RSV, the Revised Standard Version, printed on a separate page after the Gospel in the NEB, New English Bible, under the heading
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An Incident in the Temple. They're missing from a wide variety of early Greek texts, from the earliest forms of the
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Syriac, that would be the Peshitta, and the Coptic Gospels, that would be
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Egyptian, from several Armenian, old Georgian, old Latin manuscripts, and from the Gothic Bible.
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They constitute, in fact, a fragment of authentic Gospel material. In other words, he said, this is historical, this is true.
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They constitute a fragment of authentic material, not originally included in any of the four
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Gospels. Its preservation, and then F .F. Bruce puts in this parenthetic statement, for which we are thankful, is due to the fact it was inserted at what seemed to be a not inappropriate place in the
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Gospel of John or of Luke. In style, it has closer affinities with the Synoptic Gospels, rather than John.
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And you read it, and there's a couple points we'll try and identify, that suggest it's more like the
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Synoptic Gospels than John's Gospel. One reason for it being placed,
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F .F. Bruce reasoned, in this context, in John, may have been the idea it served as an illustration of Jesus' words in John 8, 15,
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I judge no one. And here you have an episode where he did not judge this woman caught in adultery.
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However, again, even though there is this textual problem between various manuscripts, most scholars declare the passage to be a genuine episode recorded of our
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Lord and this woman taken in adultery. And so the footnote in our New Reformation Study Bible, which is an excellent study
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Bible, wrote this, these verses are not present in some Greek manuscripts, and in others they appear at different locations.
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This diversity makes it uncertain that this incident with the adulterous woman and her accusers appeared at this or any point in John's original document, but its presentation of Jesus is consistent with the rest of the
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Gospels, and it may preserve an authentic tradition of an event in Jesus' life.
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And then Leon Morris wrote forthrightly on both the problem of the text, but also the benefit of its study.
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He wrote, the textual evidence makes it impossible to hold that this section is an authentic part of the
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Gospel. In other words, he's saying John didn't write it. And he's right. I was reading all the arguments, it's clear that John didn't write it, but it was inserted here, and we would say
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God in his providence inserted it here. It's there for a reason. But if we cannot feel that this is part of John's Gospel, we can feel that the story is true to the character of Jesus.
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Throughout the history of the church, it's been held that whoever wrote it, this little story is authentic. It rings true.
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It speaks to our condition. It is thus worth our while to study it, though not as an authentic part of John's writing.
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This story is undoubtedly very ancient. Most authorities agree that it's referred to by Papias.
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He was an early church father. It's mentioned also in the apostolic constitutions, but it's not mentioned very often in the early days.
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Then he suggests this. The reason probably is that in that day when the punishment for sexual sin was very severe among the
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Christians, this story was thought to be too easily misinterpreted as countenancing unchastity.
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It was like dealing with adultery. When ecclesiastical discipline was somewhat relaxed, the story was circulated more widely with greater measure of official sanction.
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I don't know if that's true or not, but I thought that was a curious explanation. Now, we've got a modern
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Greek text that stands behind our translations. This is, again, the product of the textual critics doing all of their work.
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They commented more in detail regarding this passage. Their opinions are to be highly regarded. These are top -notch guys.
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They actually wrote a companion to the Greek New Testament. I have a copy of it.
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It was written by a guy named Bruce Metzger, who I met back in the 80s.
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We had a PhD seminar, and he was invited to be a speaker. Most of the time, these guys in my liberal seminary didn't give any kind of spiritual substance, it would seem, in their speech and behavior.
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But I was really impressed with Bruce Metzger. He seemed like a godly man. World -class textual scholar.
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And he wrote this companion book. In every textual variant within the
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Greek New Testament, he explained why the committee made the decision they made from one textual variant to another.
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And I find it very, very helpful. And he wrote...
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He indicated that though it's highly improbable that this episode was penned by John, nevertheless, they, the committee, viewed it as an authentic event during the ministry of Jesus.
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And I actually wrote the entire explanation that Bruce Metzger gave, and it's in your notes on the last page.
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We're not going to read it, and some of you will try and read it, and it's not going to make any sense to you. But I included that just to give you an understanding of how thorough these men are that work through these issues.
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We are beneficiaries of their work, whether we're aware of it or not. One commentary
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I use in our study is Edward Clank's. He's a current professor of New Testament.
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He wrote an extended assessment, and he wrote this paragraph about this episode, and I think it was valuable.
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Our response to the pericope, and that's a word, of course, for the episode, must weigh in the balance of all these issues pressing up around it.
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We must be honest with the textual critical evidence, which strongly denies the possibility that the pericope was original to the gospel.
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At the same time, the pericope is in our Bibles, and the people in the pew are hardly cognizant of textual criticism and are only minimally deterred from the double brackets, smaller font or italics, that separate them.
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Folks, just from what we've said in these last minutes, you know more than 99 .9
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% of people sitting in the pews about these matters, even though I know it's kind of laborious to work through this.
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He went on to write, the pericope has a long -standing presence in the heritage of the church, which must be respected, even trusted, to some degree.
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In our opinion, the place where this becomes most important is in the practice of the local church. The text critic can deny the text its authority, but the church cannot so freely.
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Do so, not with a 1300 -year history. It's also unfair to expect the pastor to exclude the passage from the preaching schedule when it's included in the biblical text.
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It seems best, therefore, to treat the text pastorally in the church, the same manner as it's treated text -critically in the academy, to treat its content fully and freely in a manner that matches its double -bracketed, or italicized nature, that is, we need not deny the significance of its content, even if we have question about its origin.
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Amen. And so I look at it as authoritative, but I'm not going to look in this passage for some verse or passage to build a doctrine on solely in this.
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It doesn't bear that much weight. But again, we regard the passage as inspired of God, along with the rest of Holy Scripture.
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Perhaps John did not originally pen this episode, but clearly God, in his superintending providence, moves scribes to cause this text to be preserved and transmitted as the authoritative word of God to us, even though there is legitimate question that it came forth from the hand of the apostle
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John in his original document. All of that to explain probably a note you have in your
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Bible, this passage wasn't original John or something like that. There's a lot that went into it.
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Now, in the time we have, let's consider now the meaning of the text itself. It's pretty simple.
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It's not going to take that much time. If there's a main idea of this passage, it perhaps is best expressed this way.
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Jesus is the true judge of humanity, the one without sin who receives on behalf of the world the condemnation of his own law.
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This is the grace and love of the gospel. The only acceptable response is to live under the gracious law of Christ, which seeks promotion of justice and demotion of sin.
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This woman is drugged before Jesus. He passes judgment. And we draw the application at the end, one day when
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Jesus returns. You know, the angels are going to escort each one of us before the judgment of God.
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Jesus Christ is sitting on that throne. And just as he declared to this woman, I do not condemn you.
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If you're a believer in Christ, he's going to declare to you, I do not condemn you. What a wonderful thing.
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With her, it was only one sin, caught in the act of adultery. With us, it's a lifetime of sins. But he's able to be just in doing, pronouncing that forgiveness, because he himself suffered our penalty when he died upon the cross as our substitute.
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And so God can be just through Jesus Christ and extend mercy. And he's not unjust in doing so.
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He's perfectly just, because he took upon himself our sins and paid for them fully upon the cross.
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We pointed out before that we often find a structure to each pericope or episode in a narrative such as in our
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Gospels. And there's structure here in these verses, 753 through 8, verse 11.
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First, we have the introduction and setting of the episode found in verses 53 through 8, verse 2.
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Secondly, we have the conflict set forth from verse 3 through 6a.
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Third, we have the resolution of the conflict, the way the problem is solved, verse 6b, second part of verse 6 through 8.
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And then last, we have a conclusion and interpretation given. And so we have this fourfold structure of this episode.
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Let's work through this. First, the introduction and setting of the episode. We read in John 7, 53 and 8, 1, the conclusion of the previous episode in which
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Jesus engaged the hostile Jewish leaders in the temple. Everyone went to his own house, but Jesus went to the
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Mount of Olives. That brings an end to the narrative that we've already considered.
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They went their separate ways. The desires and efforts of the Jewish leaders to arrest Jesus had been thwarted once again.
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God had further purposes for his son. His hour had not come. He, of course, ministers for another six months, and he's crucified in the spring of the following year.
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It would appear that the city, along with its Jewish leaders, returned somewhat to normalcy. After the rather heated exchange of the leaders with Jesus, Jesus went to the
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Mount of Olives. Interestingly, this is the only time this place is mentioned in John's Gospel.
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It's mentioned ten times in the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Some would argue because of this, for example, it has more affinity with Matthew, Mark, and Luke than it does with John's Gospel.
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It's the only place in John's Gospel the Mount of Olives is mentioned by name. That's, of course, where the
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Garden of Gethsemane was located, and that's where they stayed during this feast. We then read in verse 2, the setting for the next recorded event, the woman taken in adultery brought before Jesus.
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Early in the morning he came again into the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. And so this was the day after the feast had concluded, and people, no doubt, were dispersing from Jerusalem.
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But it's clear the Lord Jesus got their attention, and they were hanging around.
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They wanted to hear this man. And he taught them. He took the traditional posture of a
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Jewish teacher. He sat down and taught them. We tend to stand and teach. The Jewish teachers would sit down and teach, say, within the synagogue.
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All would be watching with interest. All would be listening attentively. And then they dragged this woman before interrupting his teaching and challenged him.
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And so now the conflict is set forth in verses 3 through 6a. The scribes and Pharisees brought to him a woman caught in adultery, apparently caught in the very act.
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And when they had set her in the midst, they said to him, Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act.
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Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. What do you say? They said, testing him, that they might have something of which to accuse him.
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And so it would seem his teaching was interrupted by this commotion. They claimed they caught this woman in the very act of adultery.
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Now although the term Pharisees is mentioned frequently in John's Gospel, this is the first and only time the term scribes is found in the
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Gospel of John. Another reason some would suggest it has more affinity with the Synoptics rather than the
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Gospel of John. In what way were they testing Jesus? What were they hoping to happen?
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Well, it was like another episode where they were going to either get him condemned by the Romans or rejected by the people over paying taxes to Caesar.
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And here they thought that if Jesus said go ahead and stone this woman, then he'd be in conflict with the
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Roman authorities because only Rome had the authority to execute people in that day.
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On the other hand, if he told them don't execute the woman, then he's in conflict with the law of Moses. And that would discredit him before the people.
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And so in a sense, even though the woman is brought and cast at his feet to be judged by him, actually it was
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Jesus who was on trial before these scribes and Pharisees to see what he would do so that they could accuse him and condemn him.
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And it's a common ploy of the devil to claim in the name of justice in order to perpetrate their design and act of injustice.
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You see that all the time today, don't you? They claim to be acting on the part of justice when in actuality it's injustice.
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They've changed the term and the meaning, reversed it. The details of these men bring her to Jesus are rather suspicious.
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The law of Moses declared that both the man and the woman caught in adultery were to be executed. And so we read for example in Deuteronomy, if a man is found lying with a woman married to a husband, then both of them shall die the man that lay with the woman, the woman, so that you shall put away the evil from Israel.
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And then if a young man who is a virgin is betrothed to a husband and a man finds her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death with stones.
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The young woman because she did not cry out in the city and the man because he humbled his neighbor's wife, so you shall put away the evil from among you.
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Now to us, supposedly we're civilized today, we would think that's so atrocious and abominable, but I don't imagine they had a great deal of adultery going on.
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It probably served to keep families pretty solid, marriages intact. We certainly don't have that today.
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It also, by the way, since it's in the law of Moses, reveals to us God's standards of righteousness.
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If people got what they deserved, it would be quite severe. And by proclaiming these kinds of things, it helped people say,
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I need a savior. If I had to stand before God, according to his standards of righteousness,
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I'm a sinner, I need forgiveness and salvation. Leviticus, the man who commits adultery with another man's wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
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Where was the man? They drugged the woman before. One stated, the impression we get is that the woman's accusers were not so much concerned with seeing justice, that justice was done as with putting
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Jesus in an embarrassing situation. That's the whole point. They weren't sincere.
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They weren't concerned about justice. They were out to get Jesus. Well then we read the resolution of the conflict in verse 6b through 8.
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But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger as though he did not hear. So when they continued asking him, apparently he just didn't respond to them, he just looked down, didn't respond.
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He raised himself up and said to them, he who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first. And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
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I placed in the text in our notes as though he did not hear. I put it in bold and italic because that's one of those clauses that was added by a scribe at some point in history.
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If you have an ESV or an NIV translation, it doesn't have that, does it? It's in the
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New King James Version because it reflects a later manuscript. Some scribe put that in. He felt like he wanted to explain it a little further and sometimes scribes would do that.
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Interestingly, this is the only occasion in the Gospels in which we read of Jesus writing. He taught, he spoke, he didn't write.
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Of course there's no indication given of the content of what he wrote, but somehow that hasn't hindered a lot of people down through history proposing as to what
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Jesus wrote. That's not the point. T.
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W. Manson suggested that Jesus was imitating the action of a Roman magistrate who wrote down his sentence and then read it out loud.
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If this was so, the words which he wrote would be those which he utters in verse 7. That's a fanciful, rather creative explanation.
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Some say he was writing down the names of the accusers in the dirt. Doesn't say that. Or even identifying the sins of those present.
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You know, you're a thief, you're coveted, you know, writing down various sins. Who knows? It doesn't say.
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In fact, there was a scribe who inserted in his ancient copy of John the words telling of what Jesus wrote, the sins of each one of them.
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Again, there you have a scribe taking it upon himself to insert something within the textual manuscript.
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I was interested to read John Calvin's comments. He thought by Jesus looking down and not responding to them, he was just showing his animosity toward them.
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He had absolutely no regard for these guys. And so here's Calvin's description of his disgust.
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By this attitude, he intended to show that he despised them. That may be.
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For Christ rather intended by doing nothing to show how unworthy they were of being heard. Just as if any person while another was speaking to him were to draw lines on the wall or to turn his back or to show by some other sign that he was not attending to what was said.
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Thus in the present day, when Satan attempts by various methods to draw us aside from the right way of teaching, we ought disdainfully to pass by many things which he holds out to us.
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Don't be distracted. Don't be drawn off the track is what he's arguing. And Calvin always tended to hit
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Rome whenever he had an opportunity. And here he does. He called Roman Catholics, of course, the
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Papists. The Papists tease us to the uttermost by their power by many traveling cabals as if they were throwing clouds into the air.
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If godly teachers be laboriously employed in examining each one of those cabals, they will begin to weave
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Penelope's web and therefore delays of this sort which do nothing but hinder the progress of the gospel are wisely disregarded.
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In other words, don't go there. Don't be distracted trying to answer all their issues and questions and challenges that only distract you.
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I had to look up. I've heard of Penelope's web before, but I had to look that up. What was
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Calvin referring to? And it was an allusion to an ancient Greek myth where there was a woman,
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I forget her name now, but her husband was gone out to battle and it was thought that he died.
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He wasn't. He was still alive. And so she had a bunch of suitors that were trying to win her over.
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She was a beautiful woman. And so she claimed that she was weaving this death shroud for the body of her husband when it returned.
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But she was trying to put off the suitors so every night she would undo the amount of work she did that day and prolong making this garment until finally her husband showed up.
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And so she was able to keep off her suitors. And Calvin's alluding here that all the papists are doing is just trying to distract you and pull you off and forestall and keep you from addressing that which is right and true.
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That was his point of metaphor. I thought it was rather interesting. So otherwise
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Calvin was saying don't bother trying to answer all their charges and arguments any more than Jesus gave any true regard of the charges these men brought against this woman.
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What Jesus was writing is not important because the content is not specified. It simply suggests the
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Lord Jesus allowed time for his words to pierce and convict the consciences of these men regarding their own sin.
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That for them to condemn her would have incurred guilt respecting themselves. And so what we have illustrated really is what we have commanded by our
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Lord elsewhere judge not that you be not judged for with what judgment you judge the basis of judgment you condemn another that is going to be measured against you one day at the judgment.
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So don't do it. However we should not draw the conclusion therefore we shouldn't make decisions and declarations regarding other people's sins.
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That seems to be the popular thought today. Nobody is supposed to condemn anything for anything any time.
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You're supposed to be loving. And that's not what the scriptures teach. And Calvin pointed this out.
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He appears therefore Jesus to forbid all witnesses to give public testimony and all judges to occupy the judgment seat.
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He who is without sin cast the first stone. I reply this is not an absolute and unlimited prohibition by which
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Christ forbids sinners in their duty in correcting the sins of others. But by this word he only reproves hypocrites who mildly flatter themselves in their vices but are excessively severe and even act the part of felons in censuring others.
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No man therefore shall be prevented by his own sins from correcting the sins of others and even in punishing them when it may be found necessary provided that both in himself and in others he hate what ought to be condemned and in addition to all this every man ought to begin by interrogating his own conscience and by acting both as witness and judge against himself before he comes to others in this manner shall we without hating men make war with sins.
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Very wise statement. Jesus placed the responsibility on these accusing men to stone her.
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And the law of Moses required that the eyewitness was the first one to pick up the stone to initiate the execution.
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And Jesus pressed upon their responsibility at the same time causing them to consider their own guilt.
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And then we have the conclusion and interpretation of the episode. Then those who heard it being convicted by their conscience went out one by one beginning with the oldest even to the last and Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst when
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Jesus had raised himself up saw no one but the woman he said to her woman and that was not a rude description he called his mother woman it was perfectly proper in that day where are those accusers of yours has no one condemned you she said no one
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Lord and Jesus said to her neither do I condemn you go and sin no more.
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Notice I also placed in bold and italic font here the phrase or the clause being convicted by their conscience.
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This was also a later edition of a scribe. It wasn't with John originally and if you have an
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ESV or NIV those words aren't there are they? It is in the New King James Version however. His chief concern apparently was not to reproduce the exact words but to the scribe but to convey what he thought best explained the situation.
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The words of our Lord cut to their hearts and so beginning with the oldest they began to go away first and then the youngest last but they all went away.
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It would seem that the older a person is the clearer and quicker he should see his own sin and what it deserves. I hope we're a little wiser than we were a few decades ago in these matters.
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Sometimes it's the younger people that can be the most hypocritical and arrogant and judgmental unfortunately.
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All old people do it too. It's part of our human nature fallen human nature. This woman when she was drugged before Jesus in front of the crowd there in the temple must have thought there was no way she was going to survive this horrible sin.
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Could you imagine the terror perhaps the sense of resignation it's over. She was guilty and she knew her fate.
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But can you imagine the thoughts going through her mind as she saw one by one her accusers refusing to take up stones maybe even dropping stones that they were holding and depart from her and Jesus.
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And then Jesus said to her respectfully woman where are those accusers of yours?
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Has no one condemned you? The law required at least two witnesses in order to bring about execution.
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There weren't two witnesses now. And so Jesus did not condemn her.
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There's no word saying that she had faith. There's no word saying that she had salvation.
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Jesus pardoned her he didn't condemn her for this sin. And sometimes in fact many times often even in the life of unbelievers
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God in his mercy will not bring punishment for sin. Even of non -Christian people he's a merciful
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God. In our reading this morning we had an example of that if you're following our reading church
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Ahab the most wicked king in ancient Israel and yet when judgment was pronounced upon him he humbled himself he repented and God forced all judgment upon him.
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Not going to happen in his life after he's gone it'll happen. God was merciful to this wicked man
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Ahab and God is a gracious merciful God and he'll even overlook the sins of unconverted non -Christian people and they may escape the consequences in this life of their action.
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A few conclusions and we'll close with prayer.
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Sorry for the delay. First look at the value of conscience. Conscience came forth these men.
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Conscience is not a reliable guide but it's something that God has placed within every human being.
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A conscience can become defiled. You can come to the place with a conscience where you think good is evil and evil is good.
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Totally perverted and twisted and it can happen that way in a society as well.
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J .C. Ryle wrote about the power of conscience and I'm just going to look at the second paragraph here. Conscience is the most important part of our inward man.
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It plays the most important part in our spiritual history. It cannot save us. It never yet led anyone to Christ.
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It is blind and liable to be misled. It is lame and powerless and cannot guide us to heaven.
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Yet conscience is not to be despised. It is the minister's best friend when he stands up to rebuke sin from the pulpit.
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It is the mother's best friend when she tries to restrain her children from evil and quicken them to good.
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It is the teacher's best friend when he presses home on boys and girls their moral duties. Happy is he who never stifles his conscience but strives to keep it tender.
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Still happier is he who prays to have it enlightened by the Holy Ghost and sprinkled with Christ's blood.
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And for many people they have hardened their conscience and it no longer causes them to feel guilty.
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And that's a real sad thing when that happens. And it happens even in children.
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But it happens certainly in society and adults as well. And lastly, again
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I mentioned this earlier, there will be a day when each of us are brought before King Jesus in judgment, perhaps being escorted before he is thrown by angels.
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And the charges are going to be made clear when our lives are measured against the law of God. But because Jesus Christ is our judge, because he's our
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Savior, he who believes on him will hear the words similar to what this woman heard on this day.
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Where are your accusers? Neither will I condemn you. Enter into the joy of your Lord. We're going to stand there and we're going to know very clearly what we deserve, damnation.
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And yet what we so freely and wonderfully receive because of the love and mercy of God towards sinners in Jesus Christ.
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Thankfully the word says there's no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. And he will be just when he passes that sentence.
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No charge against you. Because not only did he pay for your sins when he died upon the cross, but as a believer he clothed you as a garment of salvation, a garment of righteousness.
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When you stand before him, not only will you not be guilty of sin, but he's going to regard you as righteous as he is himself.
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Because his righteousness is credited as if it were yours. Like a garment of salvation that you place upon you, that he placed upon you when you believed on him first and initially.
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Why would anybody not want to embrace this glorious offer of Jesus Christ to sinners?
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Of course the great obstacle is acknowledging you're a sinner and what you deserve. But when we come to recognize that, that Jesus Christ is our hope, blessed hope, then there's a wonderful sense of forgiveness and joy and peace secured by another on our behalf.
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And therefore, it's not something that we can lose or flounder or miss out on.
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It's in Christ when he is our Lord and Savior. May each of us go forth from this place with a strong conviction.
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Yes, Jesus, you are my Lord. Yes, I'm trusting you alone for my salvation.
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For there's no hope in me. I know what I'd get if I got justice.
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Thank God for mercy. Thank you, Father, for your word and for this episode in which we see these wonderful, beautiful truths laid before us.
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Thank you for your word that you preserve for us through history, our God, and for so many servants that labored long and hard that we can be the beneficiaries of their service before us in this
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Bible that we hold. Help us to value it, read it, believe it, embrace it, obey it.