John 8 - How Does Jesus Treat Sexual Sin?
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At 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.10 Jesus 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.”
This is one of my favorite stories about Jesus. It reveals his true nature and is a clear illustration on how he exemplifies both truth and grace. To set the scene this woman, who was caught in adultery, has been brought into the temple courts by the teachers of the law and the Pharisees. There is debate over whether this story should belong in the bible, as it is omitted from the earliest manuscripts and other ancient witnesses, but most manuscripts include it. I agree with reputable New Testament scholar Leon Morris when he says,
“If we cannot feel that this is part of John’s Gospel we can feel that the story is true to the character of Jesus.” (Morris)
In John 1, the writer says, "Jesus came full of grace and truth". Nowhere is this more apparent than in this story. The Jewish penalty for a woman caught in adultery is high. Here is what one commentator says,
"It is true that adultery was a capital offense under Jewish law, but the rules for evidence in capital cases were extremely strict. The actual act had to be observed by multiple witnesses who agreed exactly in their testimony. As a practical matter, virtually no one was executed for adultery, since this was a relatively private sin."
Regardless, we can only imagine the woman's fears when all the elders walked away and she was left alone with Jesus. He was a rabbi, but was he reserving his harsh punishment for her alone. As the accusers left, he was writing something on the ground. Perhaps it was a listing of her sins, or maybe the sins of her accusers.
The key point comes as Jesus looks at the women and says, "Who is it that condemns you?" When she says, "No one", Jesus utters the famous words, "Then neither do I. Go and sin no more." Jesus, the only one who could condemn her, offers her complete forgiveness. Complete undeserved and unmerited grace. But we also see truth. He says, "Go and sin no more". Or as this translation says, "Go and leave your life of sin!"
We often hear the saying, "speaking the truth in love". Nobody did it better than Jesus. I would love to know what happened to this woman after this scene. Some say she became a follower, and was there at the cross. Some say she may be Mary Magdalene, but that is another whole conversation. Whatever the case, you can bet her life was transformed by the man from Galilee.
How graceful are we with the sinners who are paraded before us? We certainly have people our society deems and damns as sinners. And like this story sexual sin is seen as the ultimate sign of wickedness. But people caught in sexual sin, in one of its many forms, are ultimately very broken people. They take the beautiful gift of sex reserved for marriage, and use it to seek a "false intimacy" and seeking wholeness. Jesus does not condemn this woman, but gives her a new identity. This new identity is not based on her sinfulness, but based on being accepted by the only Son of God. He alone is sinless. We might want to think about that before we heap condemnation on the latest icon for immorality.
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