Neither Do I Condemn

We are in the Gospel of John, chapter 8, starting in verse 1.

John 8 · chapter mention

If you're able, would you please stand for the reading of God's word?

And this is something that we simply do out of honor and respect for God's word and its sovereignty.

So, starting in verse 1.

But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

At dawn he went to the temple again, and all the people were coming to him.

He sat down and began to teach them.

Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, making her stand in the center.

Teacher, they said to him, this woman was caught in the act of committing adultery.

In the law Moses commanded us to stone such women.

So what do you say?

They asked this to trap him, in order that they might have evidence to accuse him.

Jesus stooped down and started writing on the ground with his finger.

Then they persisted in questioning him.

He stood up and said to them, The one without sin among you should be the first to throw a stone at her.

Then he stooped down again and continued writing on the ground.

When they heard this, they left one by one, starting with the older men.

Only he was left with the woman in the center.

When Jesus stood up, he said to her, Woman, where are they?

Has no one condemned you?

No one, Lord, she answered.

Neither do I condemn you, said Jesus.

Go and from now on do not sin anymore.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you so much for this story here that we get to dive into this morning.

Lord, I pray that you would open our eyes and our ears and our minds, our hearts, Lord, to everything that you desire to accomplish in each one of us here.

Lord, may we be clay in your hands.

May you use your word to mold us and to shape us here this morning, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So, first off this morning, let's talk about the note, or maybe it's an asterisk that you might see in your Bibles, that says that chapter 7, verse 40, uh 53 through chapter 8, verse 11 are not found in some of the earliest manuscripts in Scripture.

So we talked a lot about this when we were in chapter 5 and we're covering verses 3 and 4, where we kind of found a similar thing there that we're finding here.

You know, and we talked about then how the original Gospel of John is not known to be in existence today.

If it still is in existence, it's probably buried or in a cave somewhere or in somebody's library and they don't even know that they have it, or it's been destroyed.

But we just don't know.

We don't have that text to reference, so we can't reference it.

What we do have is a bunch of handwritten early manuscripts.

And it's actually incredible how identical those early handwritten manuscripts are that we actually have and can reference.

But not all of the earliest manuscripts have these verses in them.

This first portion of chapter 8.

That's why in our statement of faith it says, we believe that the scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the Word of God, fully inspired without error, in its original writing.

Because the earliest manuscripts that we do have, they're handwritten copies of the original.

So regarding these verses this morning, the thought is one of two things happened to cause this discrepancy.

You know, first it was a part of John's original gospel, but somehow this got left out.

You know, where a scribe somewhere along the way mistakenly missed these verses, or a scroll was damaged in this section of John, yet it was copied nonetheless.

You know, along these lines, there is a belief that it was intentionally redacted by some early scribes because they were afraid it would encourage women to commit adultery without consequence.

That's one theory.

There's a lot of theories, but this is one of them.

Now, the second thought is that this story of the woman caught in adultery was a well-known story of something that Jesus actually did, but was not in John's original gospel.

But it was something that was shared verbally, and some of the early scribes really wanted this story to continue to be passed on, so they added it in.

Or they maybe made a note in a margin that eventually ended up in the text.

So the second theory is that it was added in later.

But it's pretty much universally agreed upon that this story was not made up.

It was not added for the wrong reasons.

Rather, it was placed here wanting to pass on something that Jesus actually had done.

You know, and I personally, when we come to places like this in Scripture, I take comfort in the fact that if this was made up, or if it was something that was added in for the wrong reasons, the early church would not have allowed it to continue to go on.

They would not have said, okay, that's okay.

Yeah, this is, we know this is wrong, but we're gonna allow this to continue in the text.

You know, I also take comfort in the fact that God's powerful enough to not allow something to be passed on that he didn't want to be passed on.

You know, so the question becomes for us here this morning: should we study this passage if we can't prove 100% that it was in John's original gospel?

And what my thought is, yeah, I think we should.

You know, for one, it was accepted by the early church as something that Jesus did.

And this story doesn't contradict anything else that Jesus did or anything else in Scripture.

It doesn't change our theology or doctrine to look at this and to study this.

So, all that being said, we are going to study this here this morning.

So, with all that, let's start to look at this passage.

So, I want to talk about um a little bit about last week.

If you remember, last week we covered what Jesus did on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles.

You know, he stood up, if you remember, and he cried out, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.

You know, and John explains that he's talking about the Holy Spirit coming and dwelling inside of believers once Jesus is glorified.

And at the end of chapter 7, it says, Then each one went to his house.

That's the last thing we saw last week.

Kind of explaining that nobody really knew what to do with Jesus.

You know, so they all went home.

You know, and this was a divided crowd we saw in chapter 7.

And they were all amazed to some capacity, it seemed like.

So they go home to sleep and to process, or maybe to not sleep and to process because of all that they saw that Jesus had done that day.

So it says that they all went to their homes.

And we pick up here in chapter 8, verse 1, and it says, But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

You know, this is a place where we see Jesus going often.

It's just east of Jerusalem.

There's a place we often see him taking his disciples.

It's where the Garden of Gethsemane is located.

You know, and it's probably where his disciples and him are camping at this point.

Or maybe Jesus went there to get away and pray because of all of the events that happened that day.

Maybe it was just a spot where Jesus said, I'm gonna go pray all night because I need that time with the Father.

But that's where Jesus went.

Picks up in verse 2 here.

It says, At dawn he went to the temple again, and all the people were coming to him.

He sat down, that's a posture of a teacher at this time, and began to teach them.

So let's paint a picture in our mind here of what's going on.

So Jesus is allowing himself finally to be seen in public at the temple in Jerusalem this week.

And these crowds just keep coming to him.

And they keep coming to him, just waiting for what he's gonna do next.

Just waiting for what he's gonna say next.

You know, we know also that the Jewish leaders are still trying to find a way to kill Jesus.

You know, we learn in Mark 12, 12 that these religious leaders are afraid of the crowds.

They're afraid of what the crowds will do.

So last week we saw also that the temple servants were so amazed at Jesus' teaching that they were unable to arrest him.

They said, nobody's ever taught like this before.

So here today, Jesus shows up to the temple to teach again.

It's first thing in the morning.

Jesus sits down to teach.

The crowds are coming to him, but then also here come the religious leaders.

Look at verse 3.

Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, making her stand in the center.

You know, I have so many questions just from that one sentence alone.

You know, like where's the man?

You know, it takes two to be caught in adultery.

So why is just the woman here?

The other question is who caught her and under what circumstances did they catch her?

The third question is why she was brought to Jesus.

You know, I really want to know what would have normally happened in that day at this time if these leaders were not trying to corner Jesus.

What would have happened to this woman?

You know, would they have brought her to the Romans?

Or maybe they wouldn't have done anything at all because they weren't allowed to at the time.

You know, Jews could not at this time carry out capital punishment according to Roman law.

They said, you cannot do that on your own.

What we do know is that they are trying to do this in front of as many people as they can.

You know, they wait until this crowd shows up, and then they bring this woman to try and corner Jesus.

And this whole thing just reeks of a setup just from that first sentence right there.

Look at verse 4 with me.

Teacher, they said to him.

Let's just stop right there.

You know, it's interesting, I think, that they call him teacher, isn't it?

The King James Version of the Bible says master right here, to give you an idea of what they're calling Jesus.

You know, it feels like they're just playing to the crowd right here, doesn't it?

You know, it feels like they're playing innocent.

Like, oh, teacher, you know, master, we need your help.

You know, we've come across this predicament and we don't know what to do.

What would you do, Jesus?

Look at the second part of verse 4.

It says, This woman was caught in the act of committing adultery.

In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women, so what do you say?

And you know, this word caught here, it may indicate that this woman may have been a prostitute.

Uh the word caught, the definition in the Greek says to lay hold of, to lay hold of so as to make one's own.

So, yes, this woman was caught in the act, but she had laid hold of committing adultery.

Like this indicates that this was part of her lifestyle.

So, regardless of if this woman was a prostitute or not, this is something that she did often.

So she was living in this sin of committing adultery.

And to be caught in the act of it, according to the Jewish law at this time, there had to be two or three eyewitnesses that saw them in the act.

Not suspicious of the act, not, you know, we saw this guy leaving her house this morning.

They had to actually be eyewitnesses of them in the act.

So I sure think that this had to be a setup in order for two witnesses to see them, to have the exact same story, and then to try and convict her of this crime, and then they leave the guy behind.

There's no mention of what happened to the guy that was caught as well.

So, then this is complete speculation on my part here, but they probably either paid the guy to proposition the woman, you know, at that moment in which the two witnesses could catch them and then bring this woman to Jesus.

Or even worse, one of the religious leaders propositioned her himself.

You know, if that was the case, how crooked could they be to set up and encourage and maybe even pay for this sin to take place for their own gain?

You know, think of the corruption that must be in their hearts to set up and plan for somebody to sin in order to try and corner Jesus.

You know, and this question is going to come up a little bit later in the sermon, but I want to ask it to you now, to get our wheels turning.

Were the leaders that were setting all of this up and would bring this woman to Jesus, were they sinning in doing this?

You know, Jesus said in Luke 17, 1, offenses will certainly come, but woe to the one through whom they come.

You know, basically, sin's going to happen, but woe to those that cause others to sin.

Woe to others that place a stumbling block before others.

You know, I would say these scribes and these Pharisees are definitely sinning, and not only sinning, but sinning woefully.

In chapter 19, Jesus will tell Pilate when he's on trial that the ones that handed him over to Pilate had the greater sin.

And that's these religious leaders that we're talking about today.

And then those same religious leaders are going to tell Pilate that they have no king but Caesar.

So, yeah, I think these guys are sinning as they're doing this.

Also, that they can try to corner Jesus so that they can ask him basically this question they're asking him here this morning.

You know, Moses told us that we should stone this woman.

The Romans say that we can't.

So whose law should we break, Jesus?

Should we break God's law or should we break the Roman law?

They're just trying to get him in this catch-22 situation where he doesn't have a right answer.

You know, it's the same thing that they did when they asked Jesus if they should pay their taxes to Rome.

You know, then Jesus asked them for a coin which had Caesar's head on it, and he told them, Well, give to Caesar what is Caesar's.

So he doesn't answer the leaders, but he changes the perspective of the question.

Because Jesus saw right through their tax question that they had for him.

And Jesus could see right through this question here today as well.

You know, Jesus knows that they don't care one bit for justice.

They don't care one bit for righteousness.

That's not what they're seeking.

They're not really caring about his advice either.

He knows they don't care about what he thinks on this situation.

And so John adds a little bit of commentary here in verse 6.

Look at it with me.

They asked this to trap him in order that they might have evidence to accuse him.

You know, I think these guys came expecting two different scenarios.

One, Jesus says, well, then stone her, and break the Roman law because they were not, as I said, they were not allowed to carry out capital punishment on their own.

I think the second thing that they thought might happen was that Jesus would say, let her go, you know, which would then break the Mosaic law, neglecting to carry out God's command.

You know, either answer would mean that they would be able to discredit Jesus in front of these huge crowds, which they've been trying to do for a long time now.

Either way, though, they're thinking that they can arrest Jesus in a way that the crowds won't argue with.

You know, this crowd that they feared so much.

They're just trying to justify it in the eyes of this crowd.

Now look at the second part of verse 6.

It says, Jesus stooped down and started writing on the ground with his finger.

We're not going to spend a ton of time this morning speculating on what Jesus was writing, because there's tons of speculation on that.

But we are going to look at what the finger of God has written before.

In Exodus 31, 18, God gives Moses the two tablets, if you remember, inscribed by the finger of God.

In Jeremiah 17, 13, which we have the verse here, it says, Lord, the hope of Israel, all who abandon you will be put to shame.

And then God says, All who turn away from me will be written in the dirt.

For they have abandoned the Lord, the fountain of living water.

You know, here today, Jesus is writing in the dirt, and the day before, if you remember, he cried out, If anyone is thirsty, come and drink, and fountains of living water will flow from deep within.

And then in Daniel 5, God sent a hand to write on the wall, if you remember, to let King Belshazzar know of God's impending judgment, and that his actions have been weighed, and he would no longer rule.

And here Jesus stoops down, and the finger of God writes one more time.

And it's to weigh the actions of somebody that's in authority.

But we don't know exactly what he wrote in the dirt on that day.

You know, apparently, though, he was writing something that was very persuasive and convincing that left the accusers not quite as confident in their plan as when they first arrived.

And I think we should notice Jesus' measured response here.

You know, think about this.

He had these people conspiring against him, trying to corner him in front of a large crowd.

You know, it's known already that the religious leaders want him dead, and Jesus knows that as well.

But his response is measured.

He didn't react, he didn't blow up, he didn't rush.

It's measured.

He takes his time in his response.

Look at verse 7.

When they persisted in questioning him, so they kept, hey, hey, what do you want?

You know, answer the question.

He stood up and said to them, The one without sin among you should be the first to throw a stone at her.

I think it's really the same idea as give to Caesar what is Caesar's.

He changed the way that they looked at it.

And he turned their own strategy back on their own heads.

You know, I could just picture their faces.

They're like, oh, we got them, we got them.

And then Jesus says this and they're like, you know, just like, oh, that didn't work.

Kind of like last time.

You know, Jesus' response to um to this question, and it's really a uh a response that we need to look at Deuteronomy 17, 6 to truly understand.

Deuteronomy 17, uh, 6 through 7 says, the one condemned to die is to be executed on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

No one is to be executed on the testimony of a single witness.

The witness's hands are to be the first in putting him to death, and after that the hands of all the people.

You must purge the evil from you.

Think of the seriousness of this.

Think of the seriousness of casting the first stone at somebody that was gonna die.

So, you know, just picture yourself in this situation.

You witness a crime in the Old Testament that is worthy of stoning, you testify with another witness against this person, and then you have to put your money where your mouth is.

You have to reach down, you have to pick up a stone and start the process of killing this person.

Even if they're guilty, think of the weight that's behind that.

You know, I think God did this this way to put an amazing amount of weight and seriousness on the witnesses.

And if you're going to be a false witness, you're going to be the one that's murdering the person that you're witnessing against with your own hands.

Even if you're a truthful witness, there was still a great weight in casting the first stone.

This was serious business.

So when Jesus says the one without sin among you should be the first to throw a stone at her, I think the context here suggests that he's talking to the two or three witnesses.

And he's saying, if you have not sinned in bringing this woman here, if you have not sinned as a witness, go ahead and start the process.

You can go ahead and you can cast that first stone.

You know, think about what is going through these witnesses' minds in this moment.

You know, after.

After having set all of this up, having been there to witness the act, having left the man behind who was just as guilty as the woman.

You know, I really believe that these leaders and witnesses had no intention of stoning this woman when they brought her to Jesus.

I think they were going to accuse and arrest Jesus and probably just leave her behind.

Like, well, who cares?

We got what we came for.

But when Jesus puts the action and the weight back on them, they don't know what to do.

You know, the enduring word commentary says regarding this, says, instead of passing a sentence upon the woman, Jesus passed a sentence upon his accusers.

He didn't say, don't execute her.

He simply demanded that justice be fairly and righteously applied.

If we must look at the sins of others, we must be aware that we have also sinned.

There is still a place for exposing and rebuking and directly dealing with the sins of others in God's family.

But it must also be done with a heart that recognizes itself as a forgiven sinner.

When done right, confronting sin is done more often with tears and a broken heart than with anger and condemnation.

You know, justice was not being served here.

None of this is about justice.

Love for God was not the reason that this woman was brought before Jesus.

A desire for righteousness was not on the minds of any of these religious leaders that set all this up.

So Jesus says, the one without sin among you should be the first to throw a stone at her.

And I think this is when conviction starts to set in on these guys.

Then look at verse 8.

Then he stood, stooped down again, and continued writing on the ground.

When they heard this, they left one by one, starting with the older men.

You know, I'm so curious to know what he was writing on the ground, like everybody else probably is.

But it says in verse 9 that it was what they heard that made them leave.

They're standing, reminded of their own sin, and they're starting to get convicted.

And the fact, you know, that they left one by one, I think, is intriguing.

And the fact that the older men left first, I think, is intriguing.

We don't know why.

Scripture doesn't tell us why these two things happen.

But I want to make a guess, if you'll indulge me for a little bit.

You know, I don't know about you, but the longer I walk with Jesus, the less tempted I am to throw stones.

You know, sometimes when we're young in our faith, I think we can walk around like this.

Just like again, things figured out.

I know what to do.

Like, try and do something wrong, you know.

But the longer that I walk with Jesus, the less qualified I feel to throw stones.

You know, sometimes when we're young in our faith, you know, we can walk around like that, just ready to start slinging thrones with our arm, you know, cocked and ready.

But as we start to recognize our own sinfulness and that we have a plank that's sticking out of our own eye, then we become less concerned with pointing out the sliver that's in our brother and sister's eye.

You know, I've feel like I've felt over the years that my arm's just gotten a little lower and a little lower and a little lower, and hopefully can come to a place of maturity where we just drop the stone altogether.

I hope that I can come to a place where the only time I raise my arm is to wrap it around somebody to restore them from the sin that they're in.

You know, if we need to identify sin in another person, it's better to do it with that same weight of an eyewitness in the Old Testament.

You know, it's better if we do it recognizing fully that we are a wretched sinner.

And it's better to do that with brokenness and humility rather than with eagerness.

You know, and there's definitely times where God calls us to call out a brother or sister in Christ regarding sin.

But it should never be in an aha gotcha kind of way.

We should never look forward to having to address sin in another person.

You know, it needs to be in all humility, as we already said, first recognizing that we, as Paul said, are chief among sinners, ourselves.

It should never look like what we're seeing here in chapter 8.

You know, and under the new covenant, Jesus gave us Matthew 18 to confront sin in another person, still requiring two or three witnesses, just like the Old Testament.

But people are no longer stoned.

You know, instead, he left us the instructions for church discipline and for cutting that person off from fellowship if they refuse to address their sin and uh and to repent of their sin.

It needs to be, though, carried out with great weight, with great humility, and recognizing first that we are sinners.

You know, so maybe it was maturity that convicted these older guys first.

That's just a thought.

But look at the second half of verse 9.

Only he was left with the woman in the center.

So the crowd is still there.

It was the accusers, the religious leaders that had filed off one by one.

And she was left at the center with Jesus.

You know, our sin is always between us and God.

Yes, it can negatively impact and hurt people in devastating ways, but ultimately it's against God.

You know, it was God that set that standard of what sin is.

You know, if God didn't say set that standard, it wouldn't have been sin.

You know, because God set a standard of wrong and right when we sin, it's always against God.

Which is why David said in Psalm 51, after he sinned with Bathsheba, he said, Against you, you alone, I have sinned and done this evil in your sight.

So this woman is left alone with Jesus, the only one that can forgive her sin, and the only one she truly sinned against.

And look at what he does.

He turns his attention to her to address her in verse 10.

When Jesus stood up, he said to her, Woman, where are they?

Where are her accusers?

Has no one condemned you?

You see, it's not as if any person can truly condemn somebody else of sin.

You know, that's the job of God and him alone.

Call it out?

Yes, sometimes God asks us to call that sin out, but to condemn a sinner, he never asks us to do that.

You know, Jesus says, has no one condemned you?

And look at what she says in verse 11.

No one, Lord, she answered.

Here's Jesus.

Neither do I condemn you, said Jesus.

The only one that had the right to condemn her is the only one that has the right and the ability to forgive her.

And the thing is, Jesus eagerly awaits to forgive, doesn't he?

You know, we're so familiar with John 3.16.

For God loved the world in this way.

He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

But we tend to be a lot less familiar with John 3.17, the next verse, that says, For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Jesus has no desire to condemn the world.

He will when he has to.

Don't get me wrong, but he would so much more gladly save the world and give eternal life to all who believe in him because he loves the world so much.

You know, and we don't get the details here of this woman coming to faith in Jesus, but in verse 11, she calls him Lord.

Her only words that we see is no one Lord.

And Lord here, the Greek definition means he to whom a person or thing belongs, about which he has power of deciding.

Master Lord.

This woman has come to a believing faith in Jesus Christ.

It seems just in a matter of moments, just in the scene.

And Jesus doesn't condemn her, and her sins are forgiven.

Just within moments.

Romans 8:1 says, Therefore there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:1

Just in those moments, she found herself in Christ Jesus.

And I'm so glad that Jesus ended verse 11 the way that he did.

He's letting everybody know that this is not a free pass to commit sin, to commit adultery, and then to not be condemned.

This is not cheap grace that Jesus is showing here.

This is not sinning so that grace can abound.

Look at the end of verse 11.

Jesus says, Go and from now on, do not sin anymore.

You know, obviously nobody can do this perfectly.

You know, nobody can stop sinning this side of eternity.

But Jesus is letting her know that her sin is not okay.

It's not acceptable.

She can't continue on in it.

He calls her action sin.

You know, he doesn't soften it, he doesn't gloss over what she has done and what she has been doing.

But to be saved, to follow Jesus is to repent of your sin, to turn away from that sin, and then to follow Jesus.

She cannot follow Jesus and live in her sin anymore.

You know, if she was a prostitute or if she was often unfaithful to her husband or to her betrothed, he's saying you need to turn away from that sin.

You cannot continue doing this.

So Jesus did not diminish this woman's sin, but he forgave it just like he forgives our sin.

Not because he's minimizing it in any way, but that's what he does.

He forgives our sin.

You see, we have all been called by Jesus to go and sin no more.

We all need the cleansing blood of Jesus just as much as this woman.

Her accusers needed the cleansing blood of Jesus just as much as she did.

And nobody needs the blood of Jesus more or less than another.

We all need it completely.

And I think it's that fact alone which should make all of us want to drop our stones.

We are in no place to judge and condemn others.

God never asked us to step into that role.

Like I said, he may call us to come alongside somebody and to point out their sin, but judgment and condemnation are never given to us in Scripture.

Only Jesus can say, you are condemned, and only Jesus can say, you are forgiven.

And he wants to say you are forgiven to everyone.

But first, as this woman did, we need to call him master.

We need to call him Lord, and he will gladly welcome us into the family of God.

I want to read John 3, 16 and 17 again.

For God loved the world in this way.

For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

And if you have not called him Lord, if you have not called him master, today's the day.

And to say to you, go and sin no more.

Follow me and go and sin no more.

And if that is you, today's the day.

Call him Lord.

Call him master.

Put your faith and your belief in him.

He wants to forgive you of every sin that you have ever committed.

He wants to forgive you of every sin you're going to commit from this point on, the side of eternity.

But today is the day, and you can simply do that in the quietness of your own heart in your seat.

You can come up afterwards.

We would love to chat with you more about that and pray with you.

But let today be that day.

Will you please pray with me?

God, we do not deserve you.

Or the love that you have shown to each one of us.

But you loved us so much that you sent Jesus to make a way that we could be with you in a relationship where we could address you, where we can come with boldness into your throne room of grace.

And we thank you so much for that gift of Jesus.

That was crucified on the cross for our sins, that was buried and raised from the grave three days later, showing that you had defeated death, that you had defeated the grave, that you had paid for in full the debt that we had accrued in our sin.

So that we could have this relationship with you.

Lord, we thank you so much.

Help us to never get calloused to that.

Help us to never just think, oh yeah, that's something Jesus did a long time ago, and I'm gonna move on with my life.

But help us to know the seriousness of that on a daily basis.

And to have just live with joy and gratefulness that you loved us that much.

I pray that we would live in such a way that we would be able to invite others into this relationship with you.

Encourage others into this relationship with you as well.

God, we love you so much.

Have your perfect will and way in our hearts, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.