The Judge Becomes the Judged - John 7:53-8:11 - June 21, 2026

Matthew Poole: Good morning. My name is Matthew. I am one of the pastors here. It is a joy to gather with you this morning. Thank you, Mike, and the team, for leading us in song to our great God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Happy Father's Day to everyone this morning as well. ⁓ as we get into our text, I want to just acknowledge what you probably can see in your Bibles. You have either a footnote or brackets of this text this morning. And I just want acknowledge the reality that this text that we're looking at this morning was not found in the earliest manuscripts that scholars can find and people that have been researching this, they cannot find those. Should that give us doubt about what we're going to study this morning? And I think the answer to that is clearly no. So while the author and the origin of this text this morning is uncertain, there's little reason for us to doubt that the story is. Is actually true. It was likely circulated orally and then around 300 AD written down. They wanted to preserve this text. And so without going into a deep dive this morning, I want to say this about why we can approach our text today with confidence. This text does not teach us any new doctrine. This text is consistent with the person and the work of Jesus Christ. This text has been affirmed by the church for 1700 years. This text, then, therefore, seems in some measure to have been preserved by the Holy Spirit and by the providence of God for our good. So we're going to press on this morning into this text. That's not to give you any alarm about the Bible. It is a trustworthy source of God's word, but I just want to note that this morning. This text is a little bit unique. ⁓ So We are kind of out of out of alignment with where we've been tracking in the book of John. We'll be back to John next week. We're in John, but this this was likely inserted later. ⁓ We're going to trust the Lord to use this text to cultivate our joy in Jesus this morning. So for that and for that reason, let's pray for God's help. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a speaking God and that you have given us your word. We thank you that you have, in providence, allowed writers to write your word and mysteriously human authorship, yet ultimate divine authorship, written through real humans, through real place and time, brought together into a unit of the Bible. We thank you, God. That we have your word today. We thank you that you still speak, that it's not a dead document, but it's a living, active word for our souls. God, we pray this morning that you would use your word, speak to us through it, give us ears to hear, a heart that would receive and treasure Jesus Christ. Would you receive glory this morning? And may our joy be full. And it's in His name, Christ's name, that we pray. Amen. When I was like 10 years old, I was kind of an impulsive kid. I still am an impulsive adult now, but I was a very impulsive, rebellious kid as a 10-year-old. And I am at my friend's house, and there's a neighborhood kid that's come over, and ⁓ I remember I have the brilliant idea that I'm gonna put a rock in like an official slingshot, like a real one. And I aim it at my neighbor. He's standing up on this porch. Houses behind him, and I just think that this is a brilliant idea. Let's fire a rock at this guy. Now praise God, the Lord spared me that's kids in the room. No, bad idea. The Lord spared me from hitting this kid. Good grief. The Lord spared me. The Lord did not spare me from hitting the house. I shattered this like six-foot-tall window. The whole thing just shatters. I mean, just like, ⁓ my gosh, what have I done? Right? What was I thinking? That was part of the problem. I I wasn't thinking. Right? I was thinking it was a great idea. No thought of consequences. So I get dragged in, dragged into this basement of this house. So it was my friend's house. And so I'm waiting down in the garage basement. I think I'm sitting on this John Deere tractor in this little ball of fear. And it's waiting. I'm just waiting for this dad to come down, and I'm like, it is about to be over for me. This guy's footsteps, he's he's gonna come down, and the verdict is gonna be handed to me, and I'm gonna be in serious trouble. I deserved every bit of whatever was about to come my way. Every single bit I had done wrong. I knew exactly what I did, and I deserved whatever the punishment was gonna be. I'm like, is he gonna make me pay for the window? I don't have money for this. I don't have savings for this. Like, there goes all my money for X-Men comic cards and comics. It's I'm done. My life is over. I deserved what was coming. And there was a fear about that. And in the same way, spiritually, every one of us in a similar position, we have this natural bend towards a natural and real fear for the footsteps of our God. A holy God, a sinful people. This has been the story of humanity since the very beginning. God said very clearly, do not eat of the tree. Adam and Eve ate of the tree. They did what they were not supposed to do. And then they're waiting, right? Imagine the fear that they had just waiting. Like, when is God going to show up? What's gonna happen? And actually it says right there in Genesis that they hear the footsteps of God walking in the garden. You know, fear, I would assure you, you know, came upon them. And I think they like, I'd imagine they dove behind these bushes to hide themselves. They're covering themselves up, they're hiding from God. What is God going to do? Just fear. That's you and I's story. Every single one of us in this room, in some way, have eaten of the fruit and we know it. You might not have religious language for that. Maybe you're not a Christian this morning. Never considered, maybe the word sin is repulsive to you and you don't get it. But somewhere deep inside, we all know we are not what we should be. We have transgressed some moral law somewhere, right? We know that moral law is the person of God. And so we live with this. We live in this sort of fear apart from God's work in our lives. There is a natural and a real fear that we have for the footsteps of God. And maybe this morning you're struggling there. There really is a fear that's in your conscious awareness for the presence of God showing up. The verdict that's going to be handed down to what you deserve. There is nothing more miserable in my short little 43 years of life. I don't think there's anything more miserable than living with shame and guilt and the fear that it produces. It's the worst pain I think there is on this earth. But what if there was a way we didn't have to What if there was a way you and I did not have to live with shame and guilt and the fear that that produces? Let's see what God has in our text today, picking up in John seven fifty three. Says they went each to his to his own house, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came and again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and he taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees. They 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 a woman. So what do you say? This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against. So Jesus, like normal, is teaching in the temple. And like normal, these religious authorities, they don't like it. Jesus is teaching with authority. People are coming to him. They're kind of, he's kind of in their spot. They want to have the center of attention. They want to have the center of glory. And Jesus is there and they don't like it. So they want him gone. What's the best way to get rid of somebody? Find a charge against him. Let's dig up some dirt on this guy, Jesus, and then we can get rid of him. So they scour his Facebook, his Instagram. There's nothing. There's no dirt on him. There's no college pictures that they can bring back up. This guy is squeaky clean. And so what do you what do you do if you can't find a charge against someone? Well, plan B. You go make one up. Or you make a charge. That's what's happening right here. They want to make a charge against Jesus so they can get rid of him. So they set a trap. This text is a trap to get a charge against Jesus so Jesus can be done away with. What's the trap? The trap is they bring this woman who's been caught in a sin, and they're putting this woman before Jesus and okay, teacher, you want to be teacher? All right, teach us this. What should we do with the woman? The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say, right? And the reason why this is a trap is it goes like this if Jesus extends mercy, he could be charged with breaking the law of Moses. If Jesus extends justice, he could be charged with breaking the law of Rome. That's how most people understand this. Because Rome at the time would not allow any Jew to carry out a capital offense. So if Jesus extends mercy, he's in trouble. If he extends justice, he's in trouble. How is he going to wiggle out of this trap? Our text continues. Jesus bent down and he wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, so they're still asking him, he stood up and he 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 he wrote on the ground. So Jesus is, I think he's stuck here and he just goes to scribbling on the ground in the dirt, almost like he's ignoring them, like he's got more important matters to take care of. And they're like, hey, uh-uh-uh, uh-uh, teacher, answer us this question. What are you gonna do? She's like, okay. He stands up. Stands up, probably right there in their faces. Okay, you want to talk law? We can talk law. I can talk law. Begins to put the law back to them. And something interesting that's going on is he starts writing in the dirt into the sand. And I don't know if they would pay attention to this or they were supposed to pick it up or whatever, but it is written down, something subtly that Jesus would be communicating to them and to us this morning. Something subtle about the law. Writing in the dirt. Like, what is going on with that? We don't see that happening anywhere else. There's something unique going on. This actually takes us back to the beginning of the law. So it's like Jesus saying the context of this, let me tell you about the law. Let's go back to the source, the origin story. What's the origin story of the big law that you guys love? This takes us back to Exodus chapter 31, verse 18. Look at this. And he gave, God gave to Moses. When he had finished speaking with him on Mount Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone written with the finger of the life. Written with the finger, this is the law, this is bedrock beginning, the law of God, given by the finger of God. And so what Jesus is saying is that same finger that wrote in stone is the same finger that's writing in sand right behind. I'm the author of the law. I'm the author of the law, the maker of it, the one to execute it, and you think you're gonna come here and judge me according to the law? You think you're so righteous? You're gonna come trap me in the law. And that's where Jesus holds the mirror of it right back to them. Let's talk law. How are you guys doing with the law? Let him who was without sin throw the first stone. The law of God is a mirror to fallen, sinful humanity. We look into the law, we're exposed. There's no greater antidote on planet Earth, an antidote towards the prideful arrogance of man than the law of God. It crushes everyone. No one stands before it. Jesus holds it up against them. You hypocrites. Think you're so righteous? Think you're going to come here and judge me, judge this lady? It's not that. Law can't be carried out. That's another conversation. He's showing the law back to them, convicting of their sin and like clockwork. They begin to drop verse nine. 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. The most religious among us crumble before the law of God. Crumble. No one stands before the holiness of our God. One of its purposes is to do exactly that. Bring us down a notch. We are so eager to stand up tall and think that we are something when we are not. Often it's because we're not looking at the law of God. There's other means of grace to humble us. We'll get to that in a little bit, but so they start dropping like flies as conviction settles on them, like, okay, ⁓ maybe I'm not all that I thought I was. Not looking at myself, I'm just looking at other people and judging them. And so their whole plan backfires. Right? They come into this scene to try to trap Jesus, bring a charge against them, they leave. Not with a charge against Jesus, but they leave with a charge against themselves. Like, whoops. That plan did not work. One by one they go till all is left is Jesus and this woman. And you might think, okay, problem solved. It's great. We got the accusers, we've got these bad religious people out of here. You think problem solved. But actually the real problem has just begun. As Edward Clink's a scholar, New Testament scholar, he adds here the reason why Jesus is left is because he alone satisfies his own conditions. There's only one without sin who can execute judgment. That's why Jesus has left. That's why he didn't have to walk away. There's only one that actually can stand up against the holy standard of God's law. And he's right here. He's righteous. He's holy. There's no sin in him. So the problem then is we still have a sinful woman. standing before a righteous, sinless judge. That's the problem that this text presents to us. It's like oxygen floating next to a raging fire. It's about to get consumed. Fire consumes oxygen. Holiness consumes sin. Just imagine this woman for a moment. She knows she's messed up. She knows she's been messed up, and this incident didn't all happen in an instant. She's been caught doing what she knows she's not supposed to be doing. The guilt there, the shame there. What was maybe in a private area? Now she's dragged out into the middle of the city and she's dragged down through the streets. Dragged into the temple. I would imagine Face is just covered in dust. Imagine the pain and the shame and the guilt and maybe replaying the tape. Like what what have I done? She's being dragged to her death sentence and she knows it. This isn't gonna end good. She knows. Cheeks covered in tears. Playing the tape doesn't do anything. It just adds to her guilt. Adds to her shame. And then this very moment, she is brought in before the judge. She's standing here right before the holy righteous judge. All of her guilt, all of her shame, all of the fear in this one moment, what is gonna happen? It's like the hammer is about to fall. The wave is about to hit. It's like When you have your feet in the front of the surf and the wave pulls back and you feel the sand kind of ⁓ glide across your feet, and you just know that that wave is about to come back on top of you and hit. There's all the pressure of that moment, and you can just imagine this moment, just bracing for empathy. Bracing for Verse ten. Jesus stood up and he said to her, Woman, where As no one condemned you. She said, No one, Lord. And Jesus said, Neither. Neither do I Go and from now on sin no more. This moment is full. And compassion and love. Surprising tenderness. Surprising radical grace and mercy. Surprisingly so. There is no amor. There is no way. Just mercy. So surprising and so radical that you might even say it's scandalous. It's scandalous. How can this be? Jesus, righteous judge, how can you just how can you let the guilty go free? Where is the justice in that? How can this be? How can this work? Mercy is literally anti-law. In its definition, it is anti-law. It is not giving someone what they deserve by law. That's mercy. It's anti-law. It is against the law. So, Jesus, what are you breaking the law? says no. Filling the law with mercy. Justice isn't going anywhere. Sin's not going anywhere. We're not sweeping any sin under the rug. We're not sweeping guilt under the rug. I'm extending mercy to fulfil my justice. It's the beauty and the good news of the gospel. Jesus can say, I do not condemn you because he's saying, I will take your condemnation for you. In your place. In your place. Very, very penalty that you deserve, Jesus is saying. I will take the judgment. You have the mercy. Do you see how that works? The justice of God satisfied, the mercy of God given freely, joyfully even. Jesus, who alone is the righteous judge, who alone can stand before the holy law, becomes what only he can be. А righteous substitutionary sacrifice. Four guilty sinners. condemned to die in their place so that sinners may live. This is the beauty and the wonder of the gospel and the love of God our Father in sending Jesus Christ to live the life we could never live and to die the death that we deserve. In the cross justice and mercy meet. And listen, a new righteousness is established. A new righteousness is established. Not based on a finger written in stone, but based on a life. Jesus' blood spilled on a wooden cross. This is a new type of righteousness, one that does not come by you fulfilling certain standards. It's come by another, Jesus fulfilling the law on our behalf. It's a new type of righteousness. This is what everything was pointing to. The whole law of Moses is pointing to this. This is why the whole world is held and shackled by the law so we could actually see our need and actually see how great Jesus Christ is. The whole world has been held accountable that Christ may be everything. that the grace of God and the mercy of God can be put on display. It's a new righteousness that's given by gift. What comfort. What comfort that there exists a righteousness for sinners. That is what God offers to every single one of us this morning. And after Jesus supplies this comfort, he tells her, Now go and from now on sin no more. He now gives her another invitation. There is an invitation here. Mercy is continuing to unfold in her life. Grace is continuing to unfold in her life. It is an invitation now to live a whole new life. A whole new life is now offered to this woman, not characterized by her sin, but characterized by the mercy that she has received. Jesus grounds her life change in his mercy that he's given. That's the way it works for us. That's the way it works. Go now and live a life of no sin. It's not that she's never going to sin, but it's that her life characterized, it's no longer characterized by sin. You and I are not living lives characterized by sin, still struggling, but we are moving in this direction. It is a gift of God that we would move into a life without sin. So Jesus Christ. life change there and invites that. Two applications for us as we consider this text, we consider the gospel here, as it impact us. And the first is very simply this to receive the mercy of Jesus. Will you receive the mercy of Jesus this morning? Are you postured like these religious authorities who think they are something when they are not? That blocks them from receiving the mercy of Jesus. You see that? I don't know the fullness of the context here, but like they don't stick around. Why didn't they come back like, okay, Jesus tell us what to do? They're gone. Like they don't they don't want the conviction, so they're out. Or are you postured like this woman? Standing here. Nowhere to go, nothing to hold on to. Dependent, desperate for mercy. It's the only hope here. It's mercy. Would that be your posture this morning? Recognizing real sin, real guilt, but not stopping there, recognizing that there is hope, there is mercy in Jesus, and he is offering it to you. As a little thought exercise, I just want you to imagine your accusers. What would they be accusing you of this morning? You have a conscience, you have God's law, Satan is always accusing us with stuff. And I just want you to consider everything wrong you have ever done in your entire life. Not just the stuff this morning, just plenty. But for your whole life. Imagine all of that before you. And you have to pay the debt of that, the penalty for that. And you're bracing for impact. Here comes the hammer, here comes the way. Got all that bundled of guilt and shame and then Where is it? It's on him. That's where you point your accuser. That's where you point ⁓ Satan and your flesh and whatever else, the law will come to you and hey, you remember this? Remember when you did this? How could you do this? How can you fall again? Look at you, you lousy, pathetic, unlovely, unmerciful, whatever, fill in the blank. ⁓ yeah. ⁓ helmet. Sin is on him, and he's taken the penalty. It's there. We point our accusers to Christ. Accusations don't stick on the church of God because Christ has fulfilled in our stead and taken our punishment. Praise God. If you are struggling this morning with your guilt and your shame, may the grace of God cause the word of Christ to be louder. Those accusations may be loud. May the word of Christ and the person and work of Christ be louder in your heart and mind especially. And I know it can get very loud in there. It can feel hopeless. It's not hopeless. He saves to the uttermost. There's no one too far gone. Where sin runs deep, grace runs deeper still. Praise God. You will not get to the end of his grace and his mercy. You will not stand before him if you choose this side of eternity. And wonder what's gonna happen. You will not stand before him and have any hammer come your way. He will always say. That is based upon his nature, not on the amount of sin that's found in your life. Okay? Your sin has no bearing on his decision to die for you. That's why he came. It's his purpose. He was to magnify grace. It was to magnify his grace in your life. So where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. And Paul would make the same argument in Romans. Well, okay, well, maybe that just means we go sin that there might be more grace. No, that's not the argument that will happen if we sin. God's grace gets magnified. But we don't sin that God's grace will be magnified. That's as if we don't even know what we're tasting. We're not actually getting grace if that's how we're receiving any of that. So the first Response is let's receive afresh the mercy of Christ. There is no condemnation. Never will be. It's done in him. But secondly, let's walk in the righteousness of God. Jesus clearly tells this woman, go and leave your sin. This is our response. This is Christ living his life through us. To say that we're gonna just now continue in sin is to not understand the gospel and what's actually happening. Christ, by his spirit, is living through us a life of righteousness, and this is good for us. It is a good thing. Living righteously is living according to how we were created. There's joy in living a righteous life. We are invited into this. We've died with Christ, we've been raised with Christ, His Spirit is now in us, and we are living a grace-empowered life. Saying no to sin and saying yes to Jesus. So I just want to ask you what do you need to say no to this morning? What is it in your life that right now is sort of characterizing you? It's characterizing your mind. Where your mind's at, your heart's at, it's got your affections, it's characterizing you, maybe your behavior even. What do you need to say no to so that you can say yes to Christ? So your life is not characterized by a life of sin, but it's characterized by desperate holding on to the mercy of Christ, which translates into righteous living. Be the righteous people of God that are adorning the gospel. The way we live is making much of Jesus Christ. It adorns it. It says, look at this gem. Look, look at the transformation that this thing is causing in my life. Look at how glorious Christ is. He doesn't just pay my debt, he's transforming me. He's transforming my actual life. My will, my emotions. My mind, my affections, all of it's being transformed. So consider yourself as a husband. Are you loving your wife in a way that makes much of Jesus? Wives, are we respecting our husbands, honoring husbands in a way that would make much of Jesus? Parents, as we care for our children? Are we living exemplary lives? Are we raising them up with appropriate discipline, full of mercy and care and love? For the singles in the room? Are we living and using our time, our free time and our energy to honor the Lord? All of us are we living lives that appropriately reflect the mercy that we've been shown? I think in light of this text, would we be a people that are quick to forgive? Quick to show mercy? Not that there's not consequences, and there is a use of the law. It's good and godly. But as the people of God, we are quick to show mercy to one another. Which maybe at first begins with getting the log out of our own eye. So quick to just run and judge each other without first considering, wait a second, the very law I'm using Crushing me too. Jesus doesn't say, don't go execute judgment. He says just get the log out of your eye first before you do approach your brother or your sister. Therefore, we we we go broken to one another. We go to confront sin, holding on to the grace of God and the mercy of God. We don't go higher than our brother and sister. If anything, we try to go lower than our brother and sister. Wash each other's feet because we know the debt that we've had forgiven. That starts to release a wonderful fragrance. A wonderful fragrance that our God delights in. This morning may we receive mercy and walk in righteousness. As we return to my story as an impulsive, rebellious ten-year-old kid, I'm waiting in the basement of this house, ball of fear on this tractor, and I can hear the footsteps of this dad coming down the wooden steps, and I just know it's over. But in a moment, all those fears were unrealized. He had compassion on me. He didn't make me pay for the window. He covered the cost. And he sent me on my way. Church, we do not have to fear the footsteps of our God. The footsteps of God bring mercy and compassion. We can expect w we can get excited for the footsteps of Coming with blessing. Blessing unfathomable, unspeakable. We run into the presence of God, not afraid of what's going to happen. We run to give all glory and to joy all the benefits that God has given us and procured for us in the work of Christ. Nothing is as miserable than living with shame and guilt, with the expectation of fear. But nothing is more joy inducing. Then knowing that all of our shame and guilt and fear has been taken care of. Church, perfect love has come. Perfect love has cast out all fear, and perfect love is taking us to glory. Because of that fact, we can be a joyful, glad, worshiping people, making much of Jesus in our hearts, in this church, and in this world. May we do it with great anticipation until that day when we will see our Savior face to face, and there will be nothing but joy and pleasure unspeakable. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word this morning. God, that gives us a word of mercy. You know we need it. You know we need it. Maybe some of us even needed a word of c confrontation to get us to a place where we understood we need mercy. God, we thank you for the gift of the law that lets us know that we are not what we should be. But thank you for the gift of mercy. That because of what Christ has done, the law should not lead us to despair, but lead us to worship and be glad in Jesus. God, this morning we pray that the full work of the gospel would happen in every one of our hearts. Conviction of sin. For real guilt, real shame, not imaginary, but real, leading us to real hope and real life change. God, I pray for every remaining residue of guilt and shame in this room and all the things, all the memories that we can't get out of our minds. And all of that, God, I pray that right now, by the power of your Holy Spirit, God, you would cleanse us. Cleanse us, dear God. Wash us clean from all the guilt and the grime of our sin. Wash us. Bring new life. May we hear the word of Christ so loud over our souls. I do not condemn you. God may we leave our lives of sin. We may still struggle. We will still struggle until glory. But God may the flavor of our lives be one of righteousness. Be one that testifies to the great power at work in our lives. The very power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead is in our hearts right now, killing sin. Humbling us, helping us to be merciful with each other, helping us carry this gospel to the ends of the earth. We have hope this morning to chase the glory of Jesus Christ. Carry this gospel to the ends of the earth. What a good gospel it is. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that by your blood, by your life, by your resurrection, there are no more accusers. It's all lies. It's all lies. All lies. The only voice of truth is the voice we care about this morning. God, may it just be loud and clear. Christ in our place on a cross, resurrection power in life forever with Him, joyfully in the presence of your righteous judge. who became judged in our place. It's in your name we pray. Amen.

Exodus 31:18