But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?” They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have evidence to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was in the center of the court. Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go, and from now on sin no more.”
John 8:1-11
Introduction
If your Bible is like mine, this entire passage is encased in [brackets] to indicate the fact that it is not found in the earliest manuscripts of John. Other translations might include a footnote or omit the text entirely. Still others, particularly older ones like the KJV, offer no indication the text might not be original.
While there is much debate over whether this passage should be included in our scriptures at all, earlier generations of Christians were able to draw useful teaching from it. There are many who think it is perhaps a true story that was added to the text after its original drafting, making it stand in this funny middle ground between inspired text and meaningful history.
Regardless of the authenticity of this moment, we can learn a bit about the Pharisees in corroboration with other interactions that are on record.
Ceding authority to Jesus
The Pharisees are an interesting group. Their history can likely be traced back to Ezra when he led the people back to the scriptures and adherence to God’s Law after the return of the exiles. The people had intermixed with their Babylonian captors, and no longer resembled the separate and holy people of God. To make adherence to the Law measurable and manageable, early Rabbis wrote down a set of specific rules and definitions which eventually became the Mishna. They also adopted a name derived from the Aramaic “perisha”, meaning “holy” or “separate” in the word “Pharisee.” The Pharisees desired to return to holiness.
And so they developed courts starting in Jerusalem to interpret the Law for the people and guide them in holiness. They justified this court from the Law:
If any case is too difficult for you to judge, between one kind of homicide or another, between one kind of lawsuit or another, and between one kind of assault or another, being cases of dispute in your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which Yahweh your God chooses. So you shall come to the Levitical priest or the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall inquire of them, and they will declare to you the judgment in the case. And you shall do according to the terms of the judgment which they declare to you from that place which Yahweh chooses; and you shall be careful to do according to all that they teach you.
Deuteronomy 17:18-10
But by the time of Jesus, this high court, called the Sanhedrin, performed far less as an arbiter of dispute and more as a vehicle of power and control. So when they bring this case of the adulterous woman before Jesus, it exposes the uselessness of the Pharisaical class and also satisfies all the conditions for recognizing Jesus as the “judge who is in office.”
First, they bring the matter of a case before Him, just as is instructed in Deuteronomy 17. Then they ask about the case, indicating sincerely or not that it is too difficult for them to judge. They bring this case to “that place which Yahweh chooses,” which is Jerusalem and more specifically the Temple court where Jesus was found teaching.
In doing all of this, even the enemies of Jesus give recognition to His role as their judge.
The first advent
Knowing He preached forgiveness to sinners, the Pharisees who brought this case thought they were being clever. They supposed Jesus would acknowledge the woman’s sin (she was “caught in the act” after all), but violate the command of the Law by calling for forgiveness instead of death (Deuteronomy 22:22-24). But Jesus, being the perfect lawkeeper, did not call for a violation of the Law. Instead, He demonstrated the inadequacies of all those in attendance to perform the duty of a judge and executioner.
Issuing the command, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her,” Jesus lifted the proverbial mirror to the woman’s accusers, demonstrating they are like her: sinners in need of forgiveness. As the crowd departs one by one, such that only Jesus and the woman are left, the Son of Man has every right to execute her on His own.
But as Jesus taught in John 3, that was not His purpose in this first visit in the flesh. Jesus did not come the first time to serve as the judge. That is reserved for His second advent at the culmination of history. This first arrival was so that He might bear the punishment of sin on our behalf. And as a sort of deferred judgment, He tells the woman to go free and abandon her life of sin.
It is a good thing to desire justice. God is a just God, and injustice is damaging to our very souls. But thank the Lord He has withheld His justice for a time so that you and I might place our hope on Jesus Christ. Do not forget this gift set aside for you and all who would believe when you see injustice in this world. If it is a glory to God to save one who generally seems pretty good, then how much more glorious is it for God to save the most depraved of sinners? Perhaps that is why He commanded us to pray for our enemies: so that like Jesus did for us, He might make an enemy into a brother.
May the Lord bless you and conform you into the image of His Son.
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