WHO WILL BE FIRST OFF THE MARK? WHAT HYPOCRITE WILL THROW THE FIRST STONE?
SERIES - THE CHARACTERS OF JOHN’S GOSPEL
THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY – John 8 v 1-11 PART 1
This story is not found in every manuscript of scripture, and it is believed that it was omitted for fear of encouraging immorality. It is every bit part of the Gospel and must not be questioned. The Lord was teaching early in the morning in the early light but was interrupted rudely. After they left He resumed His teaching in verse 12 about light, and the Light of the World.
John 8:1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. John 8:2 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. John 8:3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the midst, John 8:4 they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act.
The needy wanted teaching and were prepared to come early. Some people are too lazy and won’t come at all. Others come with wrong motives. Then there are the worst – those who come to destroy and are engaged in Satan’s work. In this story we have these very ones, the Pharisees, those evil self-righteous, fault-finding hypocrites.
With great haste they brought the woman, but where was the man, for they were caught in the very act whatever that might mean? Where was that man? He was excused because of expediency, and they took the woman because she was advantageous to their vile plan. In all probability, the man involved was a sinful Pharisee.
John 8:5 Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. What then do You say?”
We have a nasty world. Here we see some a group of Pharisees and Scribes, so quick to condemn, and wanting to stone this woman. Also, they had devised this plan to catch Jesus out to destroy Him. I don’t know what it is in human beings that seems to take delight in another’s hurt and suffering, where some are ever so ready to bring that hurt upon another individual. People are basically cruel, and some of them, enjoy to see others having pain and suffering, and delight in torture to others. It is like those who could not get to the Colosseum and other Roman forums quick enough, to get seated in order to get a perverse pleasure out of seeing people attacked and savaged by wild beasts and eaten or partly so, or torn apart. I have read Eusebius and he details some of the most atrocious tortures done to Christians such as that gem Blandina. They were prolonged and sickening, but the people delighted in it and cried for more. Human beings are debased and Romans 3 spells that out very clearly.
In the French Revolution, there were those who stood around the guillotine in Paris, cheering, feeding their blood lust as they watched heads severed from bodies. Another group of people loves to see others getting into trouble, and will sometime assist in this to see it happen, as their natures devour the hurt of others. They love to dob others in. Sadists they are, wicked and degraded. The vile communist regime of Mao Zedong had no lack of people reporting others to the authorities as counter revolutionaries, and gloated in the harm and torture that befell these victims. The same happened in Nazi Germany as people delivered up the Jews. In the 2nd half of August 2020 the Chinese Communist Regime started offering rewards of $13 000 to people who would report house churches. It is all perverse and satanic.
Now, how, and why, does this happen? We would hope that none of this behaviour could ever be named among Christians, but for the unsaved person, his heart is as dark as night compared with the righteousness of God, and he plays out the evil that is part of his natural behaviour. 2 Thessalonians 3 v 2 speaks of perverse and evil men who do not have faith. The darkness tries to extinguish the light in its attitude to a Christian because it hates the light. In their own behaviour to one another, it stems from wickedness, because their father is the devil, the one called a murderer from the beginning, in Revelation. He is also known as Apollyon, the destroyer. People like to destroy others, though not all people do. There is no worse situation than when in crisis, people turn on one another.
This is what will happen in the Tribulation when peace is removed from the earth with the rider on the red horse of Revelation chapter 6, and there will be wars and rumours of war and civil uprisings. Man’s nature is warlike, and I am not going over the top in saying that. Just consider the shootings and wars in the world in your lifetime. Just consider the cruelty. In 2013, the last year for which government statistics are available, there were 33 000 gun deaths in the USA. Tallies of gun-related fatalities are in turn dwarfed by totals for gun injuries. Every 12 months, more than 118 000 people are shot. Many are left with devastating physical impairments and crippling health care bills. Every day in the U.S.A, an average of 289 people are shot. Eighty-six of them die: 30 are murdered, 53 kill themselves, two die accidentally, and one is shot in a police intervention. One person is killed by a firearm every 17 minutes. (NBC News). People hate each other but usually show a peaceful tolerance. I used to hear that at school, and once, I remember, some girls telling me, “We hate her.” Getting others into trouble with spitefulness is well developed in kids, and is a behaviour that develops as people’s sins grow.
Thus it was when the woman was brought to Jesus. Some in that group would have delighted in seeing the stones bash the woman as the throwers aimed at her head in murderous lust. Yes, they wanted her stoned. Others though, had a sinister motive, also of the devil’s doing. They wanted to see Jesus snared by what they thought was a perfectly set trap. These were the Pharisees, the vile hypocrites, who all the time, tried to destroy Jesus by entrapment and words. They were the devil’s agents who hounded Him all through His ministry, and in the end, they thought they had succeeded when they had Him hung him on the cross, but man overplayed his hand, and Christ's death sealed the fate of the unrepentant schemers.
They thought they had the Lord Jesus in checkmate. If He had agreed with the Law of Moses as they expected Him to do, then they would have accused Him of condemnation and lack of mercy and love, and of trying to impose a death sentence forbidden by the Romans. If He had said to free the woman, then these self-righteous Pharisees would take the charge to the court or the Sanhedrin to have Jesus condemned or executed for breaking the Law. Man’s reasoning saw no escape for the Lord. The blessed Saviour does not work according to man’s reasoning or methods, so He overthrew all these sinister designs. The big question is this though – “Did Jesus disregard the Law of Moses?” No, He did not.
There are not too many experiences worse than standing in full exposure of your sin. The guilty one stands in shame before witnesses and accusers and the gawking public. The person is undone and covered with shame and it is a devastating feeling. It is even much worse when the accused is innocent and is paraded before all, so that friends and relatives look on the one accused and some will never think aright of that person again.
The woman was guilty, having been caught in the very act, and dragged by cold-hearted men to Jesus to be used as bait to catch out the Judge of the earth. She had no defence. When sin is exposed, where is the defence? They dragged her that day like hunters returning home with the greatest of trophies. No one can know the humiliation of judgemental eyes unless you have experienced it. She stood defenceless before her accusers, but those with the greater sin, concealed their sin under a cloak of self-righteousness. What Jesus said in Matthew applied to the Pharisees - Matthew 7:3-5 “and why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
That brings us to a very valid question – what is the greatest sin, and what are the worst sins? I think if you did a survey among the general public on that question – “What is the greatest sin (crime) people can commit?” – then you’d probably get the answer, “murder”, at least, years ago you would have gotten that answer, but in today’s world, you may get answers relating to paedophilia regarding children as that is a current, emotive matter. If you ask the same question only among Christians, such as we have here, I wonder what the result would be. Don’t forget, the whole system of morality is different among Christians from what it is in the world. I will tell you one thing – when it comes to the question, “What are the worst crimes people can commit?” the world will answer, “murder, rape, terrorism, sexual abuse of children,” but adultery and fornication will not be on that list. Why do you think that is the case? It is because the world has lost the balance of the Ten Commandments, and the biblical standard is no longer relevant. Also television and movies and simulated computer games have conditioned people’s minds into an acceptance of affairs, and straying and playing around, and violence, and every other thing. Sexual relations in and out of marriage are just the norm these days.
Christians see these matters differently from the unsaved person. They tend to be led by the bible’s values, but sadly, I must say, that more and more Christians are blurring the standards of God’s word, and that is inexcusable. I wonder how many Christians would list adultery as among the worst sins? I think quite a number would, because it holds a prominent place in the bible. How many would also include homosexuality or pride, or refusal to believe in the Saviour? It is often revealing to study lists of sins where they are given in the New Testament. Check those list out and see which are mentioned the most.
I want to digress here a little. Why does the bible, that is, God, take a dim view of adultery and homosexuality? The two of them are related. Did you know that? We will look at that shortly. The prohibition against adultery was given in the Law of Moses and listed in the Ten Commandments. The penalty was given for the sin Deuteronomy 22:22 “If a man is found lying with a married woman then both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. Thus you shall purge the evil from Israel.” It was stoning and death. Israel's departures from God to adopt the foreign gods of the nations, was always referred to as (spiritual) adultery and whoredom because Israel is called as the wife of Jehovah.
We must be careful in our attribution of guilt here. Israel departed from God, not the other way around, and was fully guilty. It was the woman who was dragged before Jesus. There seems to be this subtle notion, reinforced by movies, that the woman is the one who entices, who is more responsible and more guilty, like sirens enticing sailors onto the rocks for their death. The prostitute was always the one with the black name, but today you have male prostitutes, and whatever in between as well. I want to say that placing the blame on the woman is wrong. It is so bad and skewed. The man must never be excused, but when it comes to the headship matter, then man is doubly guilty for he has failed his role. Yet these hypocrites of the Pharisees, did not produce the man, only the woman.
[This ends Part 1. Part 2 is the next posting.]
ronaldf@aapt.net.au
