I have mentioned before Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Kerenina.  It is one of the most famous stories outside of the Bible of a woman caught in adultery. In the story, Anna is an adulterous woman who is having an affair with a man named Vronsky. That novel’s fame is justified. In it, Tolstoy explores the realities and challenges of sin, forgiveness, justice, and faith in a fascinating way.

There’s a poignant scene in the story in which two characters, Stepan Arkadyevitch and Levin, are discussing women who have fallen into sin. Levin is hard and unyielding in his condemnation of fallen women. He says that women who fall into sin are “vermin” and are detestable to him.

When he says this, Levin reminds him of the woman caught in adultery in John 8. After all, the woman in John 8 was an adulterous woman, but Jesus forgave her and did not condemn her. In fact, Jesus famously turned to her accusers and said, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” When he points this out to Stepan Arkadyevitch, Arkadyevitch responds:

“Ah, drop that! Christ would never have said those words if He had known how they would be abused. Of all the Gospel those words are the only ones remembered.”

He then moves on to continue his tirade against women who have fallen into sin.

It’s an interesting scene. Stepan Arkadyevitch argues that the words, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” have been abused and taken out of their context. Now, he does so because these words challenge his hatred of women who have fallen into sin. Mercy challenges Arkadyevitch’s hatred.

But is Stepan Arkadyevitch right? Has this scene in John 8 been twisted to justify any and all sin regardless of repentance? Have they been abused?

In a sense, it would seem that Arkadyevitch is correct, at least to some extent. This episode has indeed been used out of context to justify various behaviors. Most people remember the words “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” but very few remember the words, “Go and sin no more.”

I recall some years back when Madonna released her “Like a Prayer” music video. It was unbelievably blasphemous and offensive. Shortly after that, she was touring in Italy and the Vatican publicly expressed its outrage. I recall her quoting these words to the media gathered at the Italian airport: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” She claimed those words, but she didn’t pull the video.

So, yes, when these words are divorced from the subsequent call to repentance that Jesus issues, they can be, and often have been, distorted into a kind of license. This scene can be abused.

But let us be perfectly clear here: just because the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ has been abused by those who would distort it to their own agendas does not mean that we should abandon the mercy and grace of Christ! In truth, we need this story so desperately that I don’t know how to stress it in strong enough terms.

All good things are open to abuse and the greatest things are open to the greatest abuse.  But this doesn’t undo their greatness. In this scene, the Lord Jesus shows such unbelievable mercy, grace, and forgiveness that the mind boggles at seeing it. Along the way, he challenges the scribes and Pharisees in their own self-righteousness and hypocrisy.

It’s an amazing scene, and one that we should carefully consider today.

The setting of this scene is straightforward enough:

¹ but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. ² Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. ³ The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst

Sometimes you don’t have to find trouble. Sometimes it finds you.

Jesus is in the temple and He is teaching the people. Unlike the previous scene of conflict surrounding His teaching, there is an air of relative calm here. It’s early in the morning and He’s sitting, teaching the people.

Into this scene barge a group of religious leaders. The scribes were something like lawyers. Sometimes they were called by that very term. They were experts in interpreting the Old Testament Law. The Pharisees were a conservative party within Judaism that wanted to insure the purity of religious practice and devotion.

The come to Jesus and put before Him a sinful woman.

⁴ they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. ⁵ Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women.

On the face of it, they are correct. In Leviticus 20, the Law says:

¹⁰“If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

In Deuteronomy 20, the Law says:

²² “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.

On the surface of it, then, these religious elites are correct. This woman is, in fact, guilty under the Law of adultery and the penalty for her sin is, in fact, death. Even so, there are problems here, as our text reveals next:

^5b So what do you say?” ⁶ This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.

They appear simply to desire the opinion of Jesus on a legal matter, but verse 6 reveals to us that their motives are impure and self-serving: “This they said to him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.”

It has been noted by commentators on this text that, in reality, Jesus, not the woman, is on trial here. It is Jesus they are seeking to trap and Jesus they seek to destroy. The woman is merely a pawn in their game.

The specific dilemma they are seeking to force Jesus into is two-fold. On the one hand, if Jesus does not call for the enforcement of the Law in this situation, they can bring against Him a charge of sin, disobedience to the Law. They may also seek to charge Him with blasphemy, of elevating Himself above the Law. On the other hand, if Jesus does call for the enforcement of the Law, He violates Roman law since the Romans did not allow subjected peoples to carry out capital punishment. In this sense, the Jews could report Jesus to the Romans for sedition if He sought to disobey Roman law by enforcing the Jewish Law.

The Jews are seeking to cast Jesus onto the horns of a dilemma, to trap Him, as it were, in an inescapable trap. But in so doing they themselves contaminated the Law with an impure and vicious spirit.

We may think here of King Herod who pretended to want to worship the baby Jesus when all he really wanted was to destroy Jesus. The come with false pretences to Jesus, for they seek to destroy Him. In doing so, they make themselves blasphemers of the Law that they would pretend to treasure.

So it is whenever the people of God seek to use the Word of God for selfish gain. More generally, we do this whenever we seek to enforce justice with impure motives. We even recognize this in children and seek to squash it. For instance, how many of you have ever had one child repeatedly tattle on another child? After a while, even if the tattling is true, you turn on the tattler and reprimand him or her for doing so. Why? Because their motives are tainted and impure.

A few years back I did some work in the area of church discipline. In the process of that work, I studied a number of instances of church discipline in Baptist churches and churches of other denominations throughout the years. One of the things I discovered that I found very interesting was that many Baptist churches would bring church discipline against the accuser of another brother or sister in Christ if they found that the accuser’s motives were impure or hypocritical. If, for instance, you were trying to utilize the ministry of church discipline to grind a personal axe, to advance a personal agenda, to harm another person, or with disregard for your own sinfulness, you could be excommunicated alongside or instead of the one you were accusing.

It is a dangerous thing to use the Word of God with impure motives. An impure enforcement of the Word of God is as deplorable today as it was in this scene when men with impure hearts sought to tear the Law from the heart of scripture and use it as a weapon against the Lord Jesus Himself.

Not only were this woman’s accusers’ motives impure, their application of the Law was selective. Their sinfully selective application of the Law was revealed in Jesus’ fascinating response to their questioning of Him and their demand of justice.

To begin, Jesus does something very, very odd. It is, quite frankly, one of the more puzzling passages in all of scripture. It is tantalizing for what it does not say:

Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.

He bends down and writes on the ground. Again, this is tantalizing because we do not know with certainty what Jesus wrote. Of course, lack of information has never restrained Christian people from guessing, and so it is with this text. While we will never know for sure, some of the theories about what Jesus wrote are more compelling than others. For instance:

·        One of the more interesting and ancient theories involves Jeremiah 17:13. That verse reads:

“O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water.”

St. Augustine and St. Jerome both appealed to this verse as a possible explanation of Jesus writing in the sand. Jeremiah foretold a time in which “those who turn away” from the Lord “shall be written in the earth. Was this prophecy being fulfilled here? Perhaps Jesus was writing the names of these self-righteous scribes and Pharisees in the earth.

·        Or was the medium the message here? Some see significance in the fact that Jesus writes in the dirt, a temporary, shifting medium. Whatever He wrote or drew there would not last. Since the scribe and Pharisees were appealing to the Law of God, which was written in stone, was Jesus perhaps making a statement of contrast by writing or drawing in the dirt, on a temporary medium? Perhaps He wrote the word “adultery” in the sand. The Law, in other words, is eternal. It is written in stone. But our sins can be forgiven. Perhaps Jesus wrote her sins (or their sins?) in the earth to foretell that she (and they?) could be and would be forgiven.

·        Or did it relate to the Law in a different manner? Is the significant fact that He wrote in the dirt with His finger? After all, they are appealing to the Law. This woman has violated one of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments, as they well knew, were written by the finger of God Himself. So was this a symbolic prophetic statement by Jesus concerning His own deity? By writing with His finger, was Jesus pointing to the irony of the situation: that these scribes and Pharisees were trying to catch with the Law the very One who wrote the Law?

·        Others suggest that these theories make more of this episode than is really there. It has been suggested that Jesus is simply delaying, trying to let the situation cool down a bit. Perhaps this is the case, though I find it unlikely, personally.

·        The theories, as you can imagine, go on and on. Was Jesus writing out the sins of the woman’s accusers? Was He writing the name of the man with whom she had committed adultery, but who was not brought to this impromptu trial with her? Was Jesus possibly writing the names of those among the accusers who had committed adultery themselves?

·        Regardless, there is another explanation which is certainly true: we have no idea! That’s the most unsatisfying answer, of course, but also the most accurate. We will simply have to wait until we can ask the Lord…though when that time comes this detail will be the furthest thing from our minds.

Whatever He wrote or drew, the delay seemed to agitate His questioners even more.

⁷ And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” ⁸ And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground.

It is a tricky thing to try to throw the Lord Jesus onto the horns of a dilemma, as these religious elites learned. Jesus once again goes to the heart of the matter: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

These words are justly hailed and widely remembered by all who have heard them. They reflect divine insight and staggering perceptiveness. They cut to the quick by putting their proverbial finger on the very issue that has lurked behind this episode all along: hypocrisy.

These leaders are being hypocritical. For one thing, in their appeal to the Law concerning the woman’s adultery they were breaking the Law, for the Law clearly called for the execution of both the man and the woman. Since they said they caught the woman “in the act,” that means they knew who the man was. But where was the man? Some have suggested that one of the woman’s accusers was the man in question. Who knows? Regardless, by appealing to the Law at the same time they were breaking the Law, they made themselves hypocrites.

But something else is going on here as well. In Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said:

²⁷ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ ²⁸ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Jesus said that any man who had looked upon a woman to lust after her had committed adultery in his heart. Whether one of the woman’s accusers was the adulterous man in this situation or not, Jesus is turning the searing, stinging light of their own judgment back upon them.

“This woman has sinned,” the men sneer. “And what about you,” Jesus seems to be saying.

It is an easy thing to become preoccupied with the sins of others, isn’t it? It is easy to see the adultery in another while ignore the adultery in our own lives. “But,” you might say, “I have never committed adultery.” According to Jesus adultery is more than the physical act. Adultery is a condition of the heart and mind. One may be an adulterer and never have physically committed the act.  Such was certainly the case with at least some of these men. It is possible that some of them had committed adultery with this very woman in their minds or were doing so at this very time when they were condemning her.

They are preoccupied with this woman’s sins while neglecting their own. We do this all of the time, don’t we?

After fifteen years of preaching, I never cease to marvel at the back door of the church when somebody comes by and says, “That was a good sermon, preacher. There were a few people here who really needed to hear that!”

I always think, “Really?! Are you kidding me? You are listening to sermons for others? What about you?”

And what about you? Have you ever been guilty of seeing the sin in another’s life while overlooking it in your own? Have you ever judged somebody when, if you’re honest, you know that you’re just as guilty as him or her, and maybe in the exact same area?

I think Shakespeare put this well in The Merchant of Venice when he wrote:

“Though justice be thy plea, consider this,

That in the course of justice, none of us

Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render

The deeds of mercy.”

Jesus asks them, in essence, to consider whether or not they could stand under their own standard of justice. Jesus tells them to stone the woman only if they are less guilty. His response hits the mark, for He knew their hearts. Their reaction is telling:

⁹ 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.

They knew – from oldest to youngest – that Jesus had other-worldly insightfulness into their hearts and minds. They knew, when they were honest with themselves, that they were as guilty as this woman. And they knew that they had been selective in their application of the Law, applying it to the woman but not to themselves.

So they depart and leave the woman standing before Jesus.

Jesus now turns to the woman and addresses her. You will note, I hope, that Jesus is the only one in the story to acknowledge the woman’s existence as a human being. He is the only one in the story to address her directly. And what He says is astounding:

¹⁰ Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” ¹¹ She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

Jesus does not condemn her. She is guilty, but Jesus shows her grace. This is shocking grace, scandalous grace, the kind of grace that self-righteous Pharisees are rarely ever able to grasp. I like how Julie Stoner captured the essence of the offensiveness of Jesus’ grace in her poem, “I Did Not Come to Call the Righteous”:

We ninety-nine obedient sheep;

we workers hired at dawn’s first peep;

we faithful sons who strive to please,

forsaking prodigalities;

we virgins who take pains to keep

our lamps lit, even in our sleep;

we law-abiding Pharisees;

we wince at gospels such as these.[1]

Indeed, our self-righteousness winces at this kind of grace, but in our minds and hearts we know we need this. This word – “Neither do I condemn you.” – is the very essence of the gospel. Paul put it like this in Romans 7:

¹ There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

When we come to Christ, we pass from condemnation to freedom, from death to life, from darkness to light. When we look closely at this text, though, I think we can conclude two important things about this freedom from condemnation.

First of all, I believe it is reasonable and right to see the woman’s repentance as implicit in Jesus’ forgiveness. “Go; and from now on, sin no more.” Jesus knows that her heart has been captured by grace. But would she have been free from the condemnation of the Law had she responded, “No. I will take your gift, but I reject You. I reject You, Jesus, and I choose my adultery instead”?

Would Jesus have reassembled her executioners to recommence the stoning?  No. I think not. But if she would have rejected Christ would she have remained under the condemnation of the Law? Yes. She would have.

“Neither do I condemn you” is not a license for further sin, a kind of “Get Out of Jail Free” card that we throw down haughtily to escape the guilt of our sin. Jesus’ point in this passage is clearly not that sin is without consequence and guilt. Rather, His point is that, in Him, sins can be forgiven.

And this leads to our second conclusion about Jesus’ lack of condemnation. Not only was this linked with the woman’s repentance and acceptance of Christ, but it was also linked with the person and work of Jesus on the cross.

Let me explain.

One of the things we must realize is that Jesus never condemns the Law itself in this passage. The Law of God, the demand for holiness, and the evil of sin are divine truths. Adultery is sin in the eyes of God. Adultery is a condemnable offense in the eyes of God. Adultery does fall under the judgment of God.

The Lord Jesus never condemned the Law itself. In Matthew 5, the Lord Jesus says:

¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. ¹⁸ For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. ¹⁹ Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.²⁰ For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

I repeat: the point of this story is not that the Law is bad. The Law – that which defines what is honoring to God and what is dishonorable – is rooted in the holy character of an immutable God. Adultery is wrong now and always.

So the woman has broken the Law, and she is under condemnation. That is right and just in and of itself. There is a penalty for breaking a law, and that penalty stands until paid for. But Jesus tells the woman that He does not condemn her (which, I hope you will notice, is an amazing statement of His own divinity and authority).

So that raises a very interesting question: if the Law rightly condemns, and if the woman has broken the Law, and if the condemnation of the Law stands until payment is exacted, then how can Jesus say she is not condemned? If Jesus says she is not condemned, then what has happened to her condemnation? Has it simply evaporated? No. For the penalty to disappear the Law itself would have to disappear and the Law of God is eternal and right.

So where is the condemnation that legally goes with her violation of the Law?

Or, to put it another way: who pays the price for this sin?

Somebody has to pay for this woman’s adultery. If, as Jesus says, it is not the woman, then who?

Who is going to pay for the woman’s adultery?

Who pays the price?

I like to imagine this woman walking in her newfound forgiveness. The words of Jesus have echoed in her head: “Neither do I condemn you. Neither do I condemn you. Neither do I condemn you.”

I imagine her living her life in the glorious freedom of those words: “Neither do I condemn you.”

Then I imagine her out walking one day when she notices a large crowd and commotion in the city. She inquires of somebody standing near: “What is happening? What is going on?”

The response: “They’re crucifying some rabble rouser outside of the city. That guy named Jesus.”

I imagine her heart skipping a beat. I imagine her running outside of Jerusalem up to Calvary. I imagine her standing there in shock and disbelief. There, on the center cross, hangs the man who said the words that changed her life: “Neither do I condemn you.”

There He hangs. Jesus. Her Savior. Her Liberator. Her friend. Jesus.

I imagine her drawing near to hear what He will say. He seems to want to speak. He opens His mouth and speaks: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Then she understands. She understands where the condemnation went, where the price is paid. She understands that the condemnation for her sin has not disappeared into thin air. Instead, it has been placed on this crucified, soon-to-be resurrected Jesus. The price is paid here, on Calvary, on that cross, in the person of Jesus.

“Neither do I condemn you,” she hears Him saying again. Then she finishes the thought: “Neither do I condemn you…for I will be condemned in your place. I will be condemned for you. Your adultery will fall upon Me, and I will take the wrath in your place. I will pay the price. Go and sin no more.”

Brothers. Sisters. Friends. There is no condemnation in Christ, for He has been condemned in our place. There is no need for you to be.

Come to Him and be freed.

Come to Him and live.

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