We invite all believers to come forward to take the Lord’s Supper with us in just a few minutes.
Today, we look at one of the most beloved stories in Jesus’ ministry. It’s known as The Woman Caught in Adultery. It’s one of the most dramatic pictures of grace in the Bible. People love this story. Hopefully, you’ll love it in the minutes to come.
We don't know this woman's name, but I’m glad we know her story, because no story gives the balance of grace and truth.1
Today’s Scripture
“They went each to his own house, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?’ This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 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.’ And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 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. Jesus stood up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, “No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more’” (John 7:53-8:11).
In the end, the woman expected to see a man in front of her with nothing but stones in his hands. Instead, she saw One whose hands were full only of truth and grace.
But before we see its beauty, let’s take care of one matter.
1. Confidence in My Bible
1.1 The Earliest Manuscripts Do Not Include 7:53-8:11
If you have Bibles with you, some of you may notice little brackets by this story. If you read the fine print of a footnote, it will read something like, “The Earliest Manuscripts Do Not Include 7:53-8:11.” Some of you ignore this, while others of you are bothered by this. The story of the Woman Caught in Adultery was likely not in the Gospel of John.
Let’s look at why we doubt this beloved story was part of John’s gospel.
1.2 Why Doubt the Story?
1. The story is missing from all the Greek manuscripts of John before the 400s.
The four Greek manuscripts that are our oldest and most trustworthy, and the story is missing from all four of these.2 In fact, (later) manuscripts that do include the story mark it off with asterisks to show that they doubt the story was original to the gospel of John.
2. The early church fathers do not comment on this story.
That means all the pastors who preached, taught, and wrote about the Bible failed to include any comments about the woman caught in adultery. Evidently, it was NOT there for them to preach and teach on it. The story does appear much later, and when the story finally does show up in the manuscripts, it bounces all over the place.3 The evidence that the story was not in the original version of the Gospel of John is almost certain.
1.3 The King James Bible
There are some who say, “We should go with the King James and be done with it.”4 And there are Catholics who say, “We should settle on the Latin text and be done with it.” But it’s clear that the Greek texts are earlier than the King James and the Latin. We cannot bury our heads in the proverbial sand. Now, in the next century, some may find an authentic Greek manuscript from 125 AD, and viola, the story is there. Until then, a scribe likely inserts the story in the Gospel of John.
1.4 How Did It Get In There?
If it wasn’t in the original, what do we make of it? Where was this story for over 300 years?5
1.4.1 Oral Sayings of Jesus
We know some things Jesus said didn’t make the four gospels. Paul tells us that Jesus said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:24). That’s found only in 1 Corinthians. In fact, the last verse in John’s gospel says this: “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25). So, we know some things Jesus said were not in the gospels. This story may have very well been one of these.
1.4.2 There Are More
For some of you academic nerds, you can find other reported sayings that Jesus supposedly said.6 The Talmud, the Apocrypha, and Islam’s teachings contained statements Jesus supposedly said. I personally wouldn’t trust all of these or even most of these. But scholars believe there were a number of oral stories circulating around the early church but many of these stories were never included in the gospels.
1.5 Conspiracy Theories
Let me pause to address the emotional. Conspiracy Theories are rampant in our day and time. We live in a cynical and skeptical age. Cynicism is the true pandemic of our day.
Perhaps never before have so many people believed in conspiracy theories. Did America really land a man on the moon? What’s up with Area 51? Who shot JFK? And the Bible is just a book written by men. Now, here’s a Bible-believing pastor telling you something’s not in the Bible that most of us thought was in the Bible.
1.6 Two Facts
I believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. I believe John's original text is free from errors, mistakes, and problems.7 God is Himself Truth, and He speaks only truth. He cannot lie (Numbers 23:19).
1.6.1 Fact #1:
No original copies of any of the books of the Bible are known to exist. We do not have any of the actual pieces of paper, papyrus, or parchment that a biblical writer actually wrote on. For 1500 years, the manuscripts of the biblical books were passed down to us through handwritten copies. We have access to the actual words that the New Testament writers wrote with their very hands. None of the original manuscripts have been found. If we found them, we would probably turn them into an idol and charge money for people who come to worship.
1.6.2 Fact #2:
The copies we do have differ from one another.8 But none of the thousands of differences really matter. Most of them are spelling mistakes or word order. Both believers and skeptics agree that no significant teaching of the Bible is debatable due to the small differences in the manuscripts.
1.6.3 An Embarrassment of Riches
We have a ballpark figure of around 5,800 Greek manuscripts. If you stacked all the ancient manuscripts of the New Testament, it would be 4.5 times the height of the Empire State Building.9 If you compare this to all the classical Greek handwritten manuscripts, it would be 4 feet high.10 If manuscripts were money, then the Bible is the Elon Musk and the Warren Buffet of the world!
We have every reason to trust our Bibles – every reason! We have no reason to doubt the authenticity of our Bibles.
1.7 Transparency
Some of you are saying, “My head hurts. I don’t want to think about all this.”
Transparency is a good thing. Scholars and Bible translation committees share the details with you. Transparency tamps down conspiracy theories. The Bible is “showing you the receipts.” Nearly every one of the manuscripts the Bible is based on is online.11 You can view them online or go to museums to see them. It’s all open.
Again, transparency means we are not hiding anything. Here are the receipts.
1.8 No Major Doctrine Impacted
So, what do we do? First, if this story were not in the Bible, it would not impact any of the Bible’s teachings. Jesus is still divine, died on the cross, and rose again on the third day. If the story were not included in the Bible, it would jeopardize no major belief in Christianity.
Second, if John didn’t include this in the Bible, who am I to include it? Inspiration follows John, the author of the gospel. If he didn’t include it, who am I to add it to?
Again, it’s one thing to say, “Is it true.” It’s another thing to say, “The Holy Spirit led John to include it.” Yes, it’s another thing to say the Holy Spirit wanted the story in the Bible. Inspiration by the Holy Spirit is attached to the writer God chose. I cannot add or delete to the Bible (Revelation 22:18). No one has this right other than God Himself and the one He appoints. So we must be careful.
1. Confidence in My Bible
2. Jesus and Women
Someone may say, “It’s so good that it should be in the Bible.” No argument there ?.
“The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery’” (John 8:3-4).
It is a story of a woman who had been literally caught red-handed. Effortlessly, Jesus reverses the tables on these awful, hypocritical judges while elevating women.
2.1 Imagine the Scene
It’s early in the morning, and Jesus is in the Temple Courts in Jerusalem. Suddenly, there was angry shouting as a mob of religious leaders ran toward Him. In the middle of the mob is a partially clothed woman desperately trying to cover herself. If you could freeze her face at that moment, you see shock and fear, but most of all, you witness shame. The “scribes and the Pharisees” have accurately portrayed the Law of Moses.
2.2 Where’s the Man?
It’s interesting that no man is dragged in with her. Last time I checked, it takes two people to commit adultery.
Women are treated terribly all over the world today, from Iran to India. Jesus will not tolerate it. Jesus elevates women, and we should, too. Jesus taught women and included them among His disciples. Jesus sent women out to share the gospel. Jesus elevates women. Christianity elevates women.
2.3 Afraid and Ashamed
This woman had literally been caught in the very act of adultery. It isn’t hearsay or gossip. She is guilty, and everyone knows it. No doubt, she was afraid and ashamed. She was ashamed because she had been caught in the very act of having sexual relations with a man who was not her husband. She was afraid because of what she knew could happen to her because she had been caught.
2.3.1 The Horns of a Dilemma
The “gotcha” question is in verse 4: “They said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?’” (John 8:4-5).
If Jesus lets her off, He’s saying the law of Moses is wrong (Leviticus 20:10). Jesus didn’t come to relax the law one iota (Matthew 5:17). The Law of Moses is at stake because the law is very plain about the penalty for adultery – death. The life of the woman was at stake because if the law was carried out, the woman had to die. Moses never intended unequal justice where one is penalized, and the other goes off scot-free.
Jesus elevates women. Christianity elevates women.
2.3.2 Women, the First Witnesses of the Resurrection
Let me show you what one piece Christianity does for women. Women were the first people on the scene at the empty tomb. It’s these women who watched Jesus’ burial (Luke 23:55), and it’s these women who get the ball rolling.13 The women find a stone that is rolled away and nothing inside. The Bible simply says, “They were perplexed about this…” (Luke 24:4).
2.3.3 Celsus
Celsus was a second-century Greek philosopher who disliked the newly discovered Christian religion. Among his critiques of Christianity was his argument against the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Celsus felt that the story of Christ’s resurrection was a fabrication because the accounts of it were based on the testimony of women.
Here is Celsus’ critique in his words:
After death he rose again and showed the marks of his punishment and how his hands had been pierced. But who saw this? A hysterical female, as you say, and perhaps some other one of those who were deluded by the same sorcery…”14
If the Gospel writers were making up stories to get the story of Christ’s resurrection circulating, they would have never placed women at the tomb as the first eyewitnesses. The only possible reason they included women in the story of Christ’s resurrection as the first witnesses, is because it was true.
Jesus elevates women. Christianity elevates women.
2.4 Full of Grace and Truth
The truth forced these self-righteous, hypocritical, Pharisaical judges to see the reality not just of her sin but of their sin. The real beauty of this story is how Jesus deals with His critics while dealing with someone in tremendous need. He doesn’t so effortlessly. He turns the tables as He was great at doing. Instead of passing judgment on the woman, He passes judgment on the judges. Effortlessly, Jesus reverses the tables on these awful, hypocritical judges while elevating women.
1. Confidence in My Bible
2. Jesus and Women
3. Go and Sin No More
“Jesus stood up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more’” (John 8:10-11).
Many people read this, and see Jesus offering a “Get out of jail free card.” You see, there are a lot of people today who want Jesus to say this, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin some more.”
3.1 Adultery and the Roman Empire
Remember, the early Christians lived in a Roman Empire that was full of sexual sin. The Christian ethic clashed harshly with the Roman’s sexual morality. Prostitution was rampant. Rape was widespread and accepted, provided a man raped someone of a lower status. Roman men could even engage in pedophilia, and this was seen as ethical. For most in the Roman Empire, marriage was about an heir but not about love.15 In contrast, Christians were to be chaste.
3.2 Serious about Sexual Sin
So, this story, which, on the surface, may be seen as lightly excusing adultery, may have been suppressed. With the sexual chaos going on around them, pastors wanted to direct people to happiness and holiness. For example, one pastor in the early church commanded one woman who confessed to adultery to do 15 years of penance. So they were serious about sexual sin. We should be, too.
We are living in a culture today that tells us it is wrong to say something is wrong. I think that is wrong.16
3.3 Repent
The Bible calls this repentance. It’s when God's grace makes us turn away from our sinful ways. So many people turn God’s grace into a license to sin some more. If you want to be happy and holy, repent of your sins.
3.4 I Don’t Condemn You
She looked at the hands of Jesus, and His hands were empty of rocks.17 She saw that one hand was full of truth, and the other hand was full of grace. He put himself forward to be stoned.
The reason He didn’t condemn this woman is because He was going to the cross to be condemned for her.
3.5 He Was Stoned In Our Place
And while it wasn’t fair to bring only her and not the man. It certainly isn’t fair to Jesus. After all, He was the only one there who was without sin. He had every right to stone us all. And yet, He steps forward on a cross to offer Himself. He is killed for our sake. Jesus solves the horns of the dilemma in a beautiful way. No one gets off “Scott free.”
EndNotes
1 Thanks to Pastor James Merritt for this sentence: https://www.sermonsearch.com/sermon-outlines/125931/graceful-truth-4-of-4/; accessed August 29, 2024.
2 D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991), 80.
3 Omitted in the interest of time: It appears in different places: John 7:36, John 7:44, and John 21:25. One manuscript places it in Luke 21:38. The story seems to interrupt the natural flow of John 7:52 to John 8:12. You can read this on your own later this afternoon to test the theory. The style and vocabulary are different from the rest of the gospel of John. 14 of the 82 words in this story are never used anywhere else in the gospel of John. Andreas J. Köstenberger, John, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 245
4 Erasmus doubted the story should be included in the Gospel of John, but he included it because it was so popular with those who read the Latin Vulgate. Once he included it, it was carried into the seventeenth-century Textus Receptus. The Textus Receptus is the manuscript for the King James Bible. Gary M. Burge, “A Specific Problem in the New Testament Text and Canon: The Woman Caught in Adultery (John 7:53–8:11),” JETS 27 (1984):148 n. 29.
5 Gary M. Burge, 146.
6 William Taylor Smith, “Agrapha,” in The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, edited by James Orr, John L. Nuelsen, Edgar Y. Mullins, and Morris O. Evans (Chicago: The Howard-Severance Company, 1915, 1:72-75.
7 https://library.dts.edu/Pages/TL/Special/ICBI_1.pdf; accessed August 29, 2024.
8 Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, Fourth Edition (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), xv.
9 https://danielbwallace.com/2023/01/01/how-tall-would-a-stack-of-new-testament-manuscripts-be; accessed August 28, 2024.
10 https://danielbwallace.com/2023/01/01/how-tall-would-a-stack-of-new-testament-manuscripts-be/; accessed August 29, 2024.
11 https://www.csntm.org/showcase/; accessed August 29, 2024. Thanks to Pastor Stuart Pendell for reminding me of this.
12 https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/how-important-is-the-bible; accessed August 28, 2024.
13 “And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud 60 and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. 61 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.” (Matthew 27:59-61).
14 Henry Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum (New York: Cambridge University press, 1953),
15 Matthew Rueger, Sexual Morality in a Christless World (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2016). See also, https://www.challies.com/articles/sexual-morality-in-a-christless-world/; accessed August 29, 2024.
16 Thanks to Pastor James Merritt for this sentence: https://www.sermonsearch.com/sermon-outlines/125931/graceful-truth-4-of-4/; accessed August 29, 2024.
17 Thanks to Pastor James Merritt for this sentence: https://www.sermonsearch.com/sermon-outlines/125931/graceful-truth-4-of-4/; accessed August 29, 2024.
