John 8:1-11

¹But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. ²At dawn He appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around Him, and He sat down to teach them. ³The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group ⁴and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. ⁵In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do You say?" ⁶They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing Him. ⁷But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with His finger. When they kept on questioning Him, He straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." ⁸Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. ⁹At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. ¹⁰Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" ¹¹"No one, Sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

John summarized the conclusion of the major confrontation ending the Feast of Tabernacles by saying that everyone went to his own house – a strange ending to a major conflict, but not a surprising one considering God’s providence and the repeated assertion that it was not yet Jesus’ time to be arrested. John continues from that explanation into what we call chapter 8, saying that when everyone went to his own house, Jesus went out to the Mount of Olives. He had no house, and while He certainly could have sought refuge at the home of a friend or disciple, He sought His Father in prayer. It was a much-needed time of prayerful solitude after the exhausting festival experience. But it was a short-lived time, for in the morning, Jesus returned to the temple courts to teach – and “all the people gathered around Him.” This was the day after the Feast of Tabernacles had ended.

The scribes and Pharisees display their wickedness in this effort to slander Jesus. They reveal to Jesus that they have a plain commandment of the Law; therefore, it follows that they act maliciously in putting to Jesus this question, as if it were a doubtful matter. Their intention was to make Jesus either disagree with Moses by acquitting this woman or violate the Roman law (Rome alone had the authority to call for capital punishment) by consenting to stone her in agreement with Moses’ command – adulteresses are to be put to death (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22-24), and it would certainly be unlawful to acquit this guilty woman. But the man involved was also to be tried and put to death. Why didn’t they bring the man along with the woman to Jesus? They weren’t seeking true justice. It was a ploy to lure Jesus into trouble. The Pharisees were hoping He would disagree with Moses, so they could accuse Him. But if He agreed, the Roman government might come after Him It was a tough scenario – but not for Jesus!

Commentators disagree on the reason for Jesus’ writing on the ground. Liberals say He was buying time, trying to think of what to say. Others say that He was writing a condemning message to them similar to the writing on the wall from Daniel 5:5,25-28. But more likely, He was just showing their unworthiness and His disgust with them. By bending down and doodling, Jesus was “doing nothing” or turning His back on them. He was not giving them attention, for they deserved none. Yet they persisted, v7 tells us. And that’s when Jesus answers according to the custom of the Law (Deuteronomy 17:7). God commanded that the witnesses should, with their own hands, be the first to apply the punishment due. By saying this, Jesus gets them to disqualify themselves from the role of judge and witness. The reason for this law was to ensure greater caution in bearing testimony. Calvin says:

There are many who proceed rashly to overwhelm their brother by perjury, because they do not think that they inflict a deadly wound by their tongue. And this very argument had weight with those slanderers, desperate as they were; for no sooner do they obtain a sight of it, than they lay aside those fierce passions with which they were swelled when they came. Jesus does not here forbid sinners to do their duty in correcting the sins of others; but He only reproves hypocrites, who mildly flatter themselves and their vices, but are excessively severe, and even act the part of felons, in censuring others. No man, therefore, shall be prevented by his own sins from correcting the sins of others, and even from 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 come to others. In this manner shall we, without hating men, make war with sins.

The KJV and NKJV add within v9 that the accusers, “being convicted by their conscience,” went away one by one. Again, within the context of manuscript evidence, this addition may be unreliable, but it is no doubt true. And we learn a great lesson with these words, that there is great power in the conscience. Though those wicked hypocrites intended to entrap Christ by their ploy, as soon as He pierces their consciences by a single phrase, shame puts them to flight. While it is possible that their shame before men had greater influence over them than the fear of God, more importantly, they acknowledge themselves to be guilty, and they depart confounded. A summons to the judgment-seat of God is the hammer with which hypocrites are broken of their pride. But notice too that this conviction of sin, both extends to everyone – from the oldest and presumably most understanding of what Jesus is saying to the youngest and least understanding – and differs from true repentance. True repentance should not have driven them to seek a place of concealment to avoid the presence of the Judge, but rather to go directly to Him in order to implore His forgiveness.

Finally, Jesus demonstrates His own intrinsic authority to forgive this sinner who openly acknowledged her sin. Just as with the Sabbath controversy, when the Pharisees attempt to show Jesus’ lawlessness, He instead proves that they themselves are the guilty ones, and that He is able to forgive and restore. There is nothing better for us than to be brought, as guilty, to His tribunal, provided that we surrender ourselves mildly and submissively to His reign. There is nothing worse for us than to find ourselves before Him unwilling to repent and be forgiven. And when Jesus says, “Neither do I condemn you…Go now and leave your life of sin,” He is not acquitting this woman; He is simply not presently taking the office of Judge. She has no more accusers; neither has she had a proper and just trial. Jesus will take the office of Judge at His second coming, but here during His first coming, His role is not that. Rather He is to seek and save the lost as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Thus, He exhorts the woman to repentance and comforts her by a promise of grace. The design of the grace of Christ is that the sinner, being reconciled to God, may honor the Author of his salvation by a good and holy life. Though this exhortation looks forward to the future, still it humbles sinners by recalling to remembrance their past life (Ephesians 2). Repent!