Caught in the Act”
John 8:1-11
1Jesus went across to Mount Olives, 2but He was soon back in the temple again. He sat down and taught them.
Jesus is sitting in the middle of a small crowd, which is gathering at the synagogue one morning. They had come to hear Jesus speak to them concerning the scriptures. According to the common people, Jesus is the foremost authority of God’s law in the locale of Jerusalem, not to mention one of the more popular speakers in the city. In the day’s of Jesus, a teacher stands or sits in the middle of the crowd to deliver his lecture while the crowd sits around him.
Here, in this portion of scripture, we find Jesus teaching the people. The subject of His talk is not recorded and is irrelevant to the story. If I were to venture a guess on the subject, I would suggest his earlier Sermon on the Mount with his explanation of the beatitudes found in Matthew 5.
3The religion scholars and Pharisees led in a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They stood her in plain sight of everyone and said, 4”Teacher, this woman was caught red-handed in the act of adultery.
As Jesus stood in the middle of this crowd who came to hear him teach the scriptures, a very noisy disruptive group of religious leaders entered into the temple court. Only a pompous group of Pharisees would interrupt a teacher in the middle of his lesson in such a rude fashion. They came into the court area with all the religious fanfare accustomed to them. What a rude and crude fraternity of piousity they were. Their group included many religious zealots crying out for the death of this tainted woman.
They roughly drug the woman and flung her down at the feet of Jesus. Those that were listening to Jesus made way for the angry mob in fear of being trampled and receiving this same flaunting themselves. This group disrupted Jesus teaching and crudely stated their charge. “This woman was taken in adultery, and was caught in the very act.”
We know for certain that this woman is guilty of her sin by accusation from the religious leaders and from Jesus himself when he dismissed the woman. The Pharisees would never go out on a limb without knowing the criteria of the law was met and respected. The Pharisees knew their law and would not be involved with a scheme that would hurt their reputations. They were a legalistic, proud lot of starched shirts committed to upholding the Law of Moses (under their interpretation of course).
However, the circumstances and interpretation of the law raise some very difficult questions. Where is the actual proof of the charge of adultery and the events pointing to her involvement in this act of adultery?
A question arises concerning the actual proof of the charge of adultery. In Judaism, during the time of Jesus, adultery meant sexual relations outside the bounds of marriage. A husband was not regarded as committing adultery unless the woman was a married woman. There was more permissiveness for the husband than for a wife in this male-dominated society.
Another question is found with the actual act, which is a hard charge to proof in Jewish law. Throughout the history of mankind, it has always been noted that it actually takes two to commit the offense of adultery. Where is the Man? The very fact they produced no man as proof was evidence they were not looking to enforce the law. Lev. 20:10 says, “and the man the commits adultery with another man’s wife, especially he that commits adultery with his neighbors wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.” The requirement of the law is that the two shall be put to death for their sins, not just the one. To fulfill the letter of the law, the man would have to be produced in order for an execution to take place. This group obviously had ulterior motives.
The next question leans on this group to demonstrate the burden of proof. In order to prove adultery there has to be at least two witnesses who observed first-hand the very act. These witnesses would actually need to have caught the accused in a serious compromising position, not just find them together. The witnesses would have to state beyond a shadow of doubt that the movements of the two allow for no other interpretation than their actions would imply. Then, the evidence of the witnesses would have to collaborate with each other leaving absolutely no uncertainty with the leaders.
A final question arises in the awareness, did the guilty parties actually have the knowledge that they were in transgression of known laws. Judaism provided a legal ruling, “no penalty without a warning.” The guilty party must have been expressly given a previous warning that certain actions would provide certain consequences as ascribed by the law. A person was not regarded as in breach of the law if they did not know the legalities of the law and the provisions found within the law. It was presumed that ordinary citizens were for the most part illiterate and did not know the contents of the law. In the case of adultery, the husband needed to have warned the wife, in front of witnesses, her specific duties and her loyalty to her husband.
5Moses, in the law, gave orders to stone such persons. What do you say? 6They were trying to trap him into saying something incriminating so they could bring charges against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the dirt.
With the legalities of the law satisfied within their minds, what was the purpose of bringing this woman to Jesus? They didn’t consider Jesus a true teacher of the law. Only a learned Pharisee could interpret the law and truly teach that same law. He was an outsider, not one of their elite. With this in mind there could be only one consideration here; this is a trap! Therefore, a trap for whom? The woman! For Jesus?
We have no evidence to support a claim of entrapment against the woman but her accusers were bent on having her executed, or were they? They placed Jesus in the middle of a perplexing dilemma. They were right about the Law of Moses. Will Jesus contradict Moses? Will he pass the offense off and make light towards a tolerance for adultery? They did this to trap Jesus so that they could accuse him of wrongdoing. This would discredit him and hurt his popularity with those he came to teach. They weren’t really looking to stone this woman. They wanted to stone Jesus.
Jesus knew the thoughts of this angry mob – He “knew them inside and out, knew how untrustworthy they were. He didn’t need any help in seeing right through them” (John 2:25). Some of the participants in the evil plot had ends of their own to secure; at least some were Pharisees who were strongly opposed to Jesus. They were using this woman to accuse Jesus so as to rid themselves of this rabble-rouser.
This scene is very interesting. When Jesus didn’t answer they pressed for him to speak out concerning this woman. The guilty woman was flung down at the feet of Jesus. The woman was humiliated by this jeering and leering mob. Except for Jesus, all others are pointing their self-righteous fingers at the woman. Surprisingly, Jesus ignores the woman and he ignores the crowd. He stoops down and writes in the sand with his finger. In essence, he dismisses the case entirely. He will not join the crowd with accusation and will not look at the woman and add to her embarrassment. He quietly stoops and writes like he doesn’t even hear the crowd.
We don’t know what Jesus wrote but this is the only record in which we hear of Jesus writing anything. This is the only record that we find of Jesus writing and here he is writing in public. What was written was not recorded and is secondary to the story. This writing has long ago been eradicated by time, history and events of the past. To only once look upon an actual manuscript wrote by our Lord and Savior.
We can only guess what he wrote. Possibly he wrote something from the Old Testament from the Psalms or one of the prophets pointing to the deceit of the Pharisees. Maybe, he followed the practice of the Roman judges of the day; they wrote out their sentence first and then read it aloud. In this situation, he could have written, “let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone.” Then he would pronounce sentence to the guilty parties.
Another view could be that he wrote something from the Law of Moses that pricked their conscience showing their wickedness concerning being malicious witnesses as found in Exodus 23:1. If this was the case, then Jesus would be warning them as accusers, a) be careful unless you are guilty of being malicious witnesses, or b) make sure you aren’t associating with those who are wicked in an unsavory affair. One could find themselves caught in legal trouble if they were in cahoots with those giving false witness.
Here is what I think Jesus wrote. He meticulously wrote down sins of the people and linked them by writing down their names. When each person there saw his name linked with a sin in there own past; each hastily retreated making their exit, from the eldest to the youngest. Psalms 90:8 states, “you keep track of our sins; every misdeed since we were children is entered in your books.” When they viewed their sins and noticed their deeds were an open book to Jesus, they wanted nothing to do with the situation or with the woman.
7They kept at him, badgering him. He straightened up and said, “The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone.” 8Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt. 9Hearing that, they walked away, one after the other, beginning with the oldest. The woman was left alone.
Jesus gives us the requirement for being a judge, which is something for all of us to hear. We have the right to be a judge of others provided we meet the requirements. That requirement is sinlessness. I don’t know about you but that requirement takes me out of the stone-throwing business. They all left one-by-one, till there was no one left to throw a stone at her, save one. Only Jesus could have threw a stone at her. All the others deserted her. What hypocrites they were!
Jesus resumed his writing on the ground after passing his sentence. Could he have wrote the words of Exodus 13:7 concerning false charges and putting an innocent person to death. We can only speculate what he wrote but the effect on them was undaunting. Those that were so eager to stone this woman now were unwilling to strike at her. Did they realize their situation was now impossible and they were standing on precarious ground? Did they realize that possible joining in with false witnesses in an execution could also bring about their own execution? Again we can only speculate.
As the realities of the situation arose on their minds, each one left and went their own way. Not one was guiltless and they saw they were in no position to throw a stone. How many were deterred by the fact that none were without sin, and how many were thinking of the penalty of association with false witnesses, we have no way of knowing. What we do know id that they all went. The oldest went first. They would have the most to lose and had the greater responsibility. In the culture of the day, they were expected to take the lead, they had to be very careful in situations as these. If there was anything amiss, they being the elders were expected to stand against wrong, being examples for the younger generation. When they elders walked away, the younger found themselves in an impossible situation, so they soon followed. There was no one left of high position to back them up.
Jesus stood and saw only the woman remained of the original group. In the KJV “in the midst” could mean that the earlier crowd of students was still there and only the accusers were found missing. The important thing for us to see here was there was no one left to accuse the woman and to stone her.
10Jesus stood up and spoke to her. “Woman, where are they? Does no one condemn you?” 11”No one, Master”, She said. “Neither do I,” said Jesus. “Go on your way. From now on, don’t sin.”
This woman was guilty of sin and according to the Law of Moses and adulteress was to be put to death. Was Jesus reversing the Mosaic Law? NO! He was placing his cross between the woman and her sin. This one who was the Son of God, born of a virgin, who himself was under a dark cloud all of his life, is the one who would go to the cross and pay the penalty of sin even for this woman. He did not come into the world to condemn those guilty of sin. He did not come into this world to set himself up as judge of this world. He came into this world to be the Savior of us all!
A great many people think they are lost because they have committed an unpardonable sin or too many sins, or they think that God is an unjust God who is only out to punish them. Have I got news for you! One is not lost because they are an adulterer, a murderer, or a liar, or a thief, or because they have borne false witness against another, or committed any other sin. A person does these things because he is lost and doesn’t believe in the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ does forgive sin. He is our savior. He died for the sins of the entire world, past, present and future. Any person who comes to the Lord Jesus Christ and asks for forgiveness is delivered from their sins. All you need to do is believe in Jesus and then ask. How simple can it be to have this assurance? Just ask!
Scripture from "The Message".
