Let me begin with a simple question – have you ever been in a situation where you were disgraced? St James says…“We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check. .......But no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison”. (James 3:2, 8) Here’s the bottom line… Disgrace, Disappointment, and Shame are Conditions We all Experience. So we’ve all disgraced ourselves with our words…we’ve said things for which now we’re ashamed… Bible say - If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8)
The concept of “grace” is thrilling beyond words. One of the best-known definitions of grace is only three words: God's unmerited favour in other words Grace is that which is freely given and totally undeserved; receiving what you do not deserve, and not receiving what you do. God introduced the Law of Moses, given to the children of Israel. For a period of time, it was a complete system, lacking nothing. It was merit based. If you keep the law, you will be blessed. But although the system was complete, it failed to control human conduct. The flesh is not subject to the law of God because of human’s fallen nature. When Jesus spoke on the Sermon of the Mount, He affirmed the Law of Moses but introduced another system and a period called grace and truth. And this is where we are today. We’re not under the severity of the Law of Moses; we are in a period called grace. It is a time of God’s grace. The more you understand it the more you will celebrate it. John 1:17 says that “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. “ Moses was just the instrument of God to bring in the Law of Moses.
The law is a system based on merit and work – What you do will determine what you get. Grace is a system based on FAITH – What you believe will determine what you get. Because of God’s grace, Jesus Christ loved the human kind steadfastly, sacrificially, selflessly, unconditionally and redemptively. All of these are really just describing something called God’s GRACE. It’s the work of God’s redemptive, sacrificial and unconditional love for you and me. He brought grace, that’s why the ‘people of the law’ (such as the scribes and Pharisees) had a hard time with him. The religious leaders couldn’t understand why Jesus was doing what he was doing. They were using the law incorrectly with wrong motive. But Jesus was demonstrating grace and truth. They had so much conflict that they wanted to trap and eliminate Jesus. So they brought Him a woman caught in adultery. According to the law, both the man and woman caught in adultery will be stoned. But the man was conveniently ‘absent’. However Jesus did not dispute the charges of the woman- Which meant she was guilty. The law brought her to Jesus and accused her.
The woman is brought before Jesus early morning (John 8:2-3) by a group of religious people. I think they assumed to take social responsibilities seriously to maintaining stability in a society that is more than a little prone to instability. They see Jesus as a threat to social stability. Because He constantly challenges the corruption among religious groups and He disregards their corrupted tradition, rituals and custom. One way of containing him would be to discredit him as a teacher. If he is given an insoluble dilemma and fails to find a solution, his position of moral authority will be undermined, and people will be less likely to flock around him as they are now doing. This will diminish the danger he poses to himself, to them, and to others.
So the Jewish leaders bring a woman to him. She has been found guilty of adultery. They take the woman from her prison cell to the Temple precincts where Jesus is teaching, presumably in the outer courtyards of the Temple – the Court of the Gentiles or the Court of Women would be the only areas she could be taken, since a woman could not go any further into the holy area according to their custom. Nothing is known of her status, or her family background. All we can surmise is that she was frightened, confused, and hopeless, since she had disgraced herself and her family, and now faced the horrific death sentence. Stoning was a particularly brutal form of execution, but a strangely logical one in the context of the times. Consider the specific question they were putting forth to Jesus: "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now the Law of Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?" (John 8:4-5)
Who is this woman? The answer may surprise you. She represent’s all of us. We have all been "caught" in our sins. By the same token St James said that if you break one commandment, you've broken them all (James 2:10). That places all of us, men and women alike, on the same moral level. We have all sinned. If every person would have eyes to see this truth, we would humbly eliminate all self-righteousness from our hearts. In short, we are all made of clay; we all have the inclination to sin. With one devastating statement Jesus demonstrated that the Law wasn't wrong, but if everyone saw the Law for what it was, we would understand that we are all guilty. Including the self-proclaimed, puritanical, religious, moral guardians known as the scribes and Pharisees ... and those who follow in their footsteps
The Temple leaders (scribes and Pharisees) challenged him to find a solution to a problem: what was to be done with this woman, who is guilty of adultery, a capital crime? Jesus did not question her guilt, neither did he condone it. He enigmatically refused to speak, but instead wrote in the gravel. Then he straightened up, looked at the crowd of accusers and said ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’. The first stones had to be thrown by the witnesses to the adultery, and then after that each member of the community in which the two adulterers lived had to come forward and throw a stone. The thinking behind this was that, since every person in the community threw stone, no one person could be held responsible for the death of the pair.
When people's hypocrisy is exposed, the typical instinct is to kill the person who did the exposing. And that's exactly what Jesus did in this scene. Self-righteous men exposed an adulterous woman. A merciful prophet exposed the hypocrisy of religious leaders. It's hypocritical for sinners to want to harm other sinners because of sin. According to Jesus, only the guiltless could rightfully carry out such a righteous sentence of justice. Unfortunately, this same judgmental attitude lives in the hearts of many self-righteous people today. These are those who clearly see the evil in others while being blind to the evil residing in their own hearts. In the mind of God, righteousness and justice are grounded in grace. Whenever grace is removed, we are left with the heartless hypocrisy of self righteous people. In this story, Jesus Christ didn't overturn the Law. Instead, He re-established righteousness on the basis of grace.
The woman is undoubtedly guilty of adultery, and according to the Law of Moses she should be punished by death. But this cannot be done, since the Roman overlords have stripped Jewish leaders of the power to execute a criminal. Jesus recognizes immediately that it is a set-up. He knows that if he pronounces the sentence of death on the woman, he is flouting Roman law. If he lets her off, he is flouting the Law of Moses. What is he to do? Instead of answering, Jesus does something unexpected – Jesus straightens up and faces them. Then he says the direct, devastating words that have shaped so much of Biblical thinking: ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.’
The authority of his words and presence obviously affects them. They are silenced at last. One by one, beginning with the most respected man among them, they melt away into the gathering crowd. Eventually, Jesus is left alone with the woman still standing in front of him. He straightens up again, and speaks to her. ‘Where are your accusers?’ he asks. ‘Has no-one seen fit to condemn you?’ She simply answers ‘No-one, sir.’ ‘Then I do not condemn you either’ says Jesus. ‘Go on your way, and do not sin anymore.’ Jesus does not condone what she had done, or dismiss her sin as unimportant, or understandable. He knows, and she does too, that what she has done is wrong. But he condemns the sin, not the sinner, and commands her not to sin again. The woman is called to change, but the message is aimed directly at each one of us. Think for a moment the amazing grace of Jesus which led an adulterous woman from disgrace to grace.
First, Jesus gives her protection from the crowd that was looking to stone her and protected her from the accusations of the law. Jesus also gave her dignity and self esteem. Grace gave her dignity. How? He was showing her that she was no worse than the very individuals who were accusing her. He gave her a sense of self esteem by letting her know she’s not the only sinner in town. Grace does not deny sin in your life but protects you from the accusations of the law. Jesus gave her protection, forgiveness, dignity and self esteem, released her from condemnation. However Jesus made a demand on her lifestyle. What demand? “Go and sin no more!”Sin has consequences! Grace offers you all the promises of God, but also makes a demand on how you live.
Grace doesn’t punish you for sinning, sin does. For the wages of sin is death. Go and sin no more, because God knows you will be back in the same spot next week. Change the way you live so that grace and lifestyle can work together. Grace is God’s freedom. Freedom needs boundaries and rules.
The greatest threat to freedom is freedom. When you understand grace, then you will live a life of gratitude and appreciation. Walk in the freedom, free of guilt, walk in the protection of God’s grace.
Live a lifestyle that complements grace and does not trap you in bondage ever again. We can experience and expresses grace in two ways: Vertical Grace is the grace that we receive from God; Horizontal Grace is the grace that we express to others.
Jesus told the woman to go, and not to sin again. This story does not condemn the sinner, but calls the sinner to change, to be saved. Pointing the finger at others has always been an easy way of shifting the blame. This remind me the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:1-5, ‘You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye’. Because God has placed you in Christ, making you holy and blameless in His sight, Jesus has called you to a brand-new life. A life no longer marred by sin, but baptized by grace—just like the woman caught in the act of adultery. Thus He says to you ... and to us ... Go and sin no more. I have written a new identity, a new purpose and a new Destiny for you in the dust and dirt of this life. God bless
