John 8:1-11
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Intro/Background
The last few weeks, we’ve been reading about this big debate going on about who Jesus was
Tonight, we’re going to see exactly who He is, and not just His claims, but we’re going to see it in action
This is such a great story
One that many of us are probably familiar with, but one that has so much personal meaning and application for all of us
Lesson - John 8:1-11.
Verses 53-6a
Remember that for the past week, Jesus has been in Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles, and He’s been teaching in the temple
Early the next morning, Jesus gets up and heads to the temple to teach again
If you remember, the past couple of times He’s been teaching, the religious leaders have wanted to challenge Him, but He easily defeated their put downs and arguments
But it made the Pharisees so mad that they wanted to kill Him.
Something very important to remember was that Rome was the ruling authority at the time
The Romans were pretty good at getting the countries they took over to fall in line with them and accept their new occupiers
They’d let the locals keep most of their customs and traditions and culture. They could keep their own religion. And they could keep most of their laws and some of their own legal system.
But one thing they took away was the right of capital punishment - to be able to sentence someone to death for a crime - that was something only the Romans could do
So they Pharisees had a bid of a conundrum
They couldn’t just kill Jesus, that would be murder, and that would be breaking the law.
They couldn’t just take Him to their own court, the Sanhedrin Council, and declare Him guilty of blasphemy and kill Him, they didn’t have that ability. And if they tried, the Romans would crack down and put many of them in prison.
Their only real course of action was to get the Romans to put Him to death. But that was easier said than done. The Romans didn’t want to get involved with what they saw as “local religious affairs” and left that to the Jews
So the Pharisees come up with this plan - if they could get a big riot going, and get the crowds who were listening to Jesus to get mad at Him, maybe they’d at the least get the crowds to stop following Him, and at most they’d get Rome to step in and arrest Jesus for causing a riot.
Here in our verses, we see the plan in action.
Vs. 6 tells us that this whole situation was a trap, something they worked up to try and get the crowd to turn on Jesus and get Rome to step in
Keep that in mind as we discuss what’s happening - let’s actually read this section again
Verses 3-6a
the scribes and Pharisees bring this woman to Him who they caught in the very act of adultery
And they throw her before Him and say, “Moses said in the law this woman should die for her sin. What do you say?”
Again, like we mentioned, there’s something fishy about what’s going on - this wasn’t them catching someone in the midst of a crime
They waited until they could make this accusation in front of this huge crowd at the temple
And not to mention, where’s the dude?!?
It takes 2 to tango - so he should have been there too
Makes me wonder if they hired this guy, or knew a guy who was having and affair, and made a deal so they could take advantage of the situation to trap Jesus, not caring what damage they left in their wake (they obviously didn’t think it was unfair to the woman!)
We know they really didn’t want to see justice done, they wanted to trap Jesus
So how is this a trap?
What if Jesus said no, she shouldn’t be put to death for her crime of adultery?
The law of Moses did say that adultery was a capital offense, you could be stoned for it (Lev. 20:10)
But the law also said that you had to be caught in the act by multiple witnesses (and that both the man and the woman were to be stoned)
So almost no one ever was stoned for committing adultery - this was a very harsh judgement that they set before Jesus
They could get the crowds to turn on Him and saw He didn’t follow God’s law
What if Jesus said yes, the law of Moses needed to be kept and she should die?
Remember, the Romans had taken away the right of capital punishment from the Jews
Jesus would have broken the law if He said to stone her
The Pharisees could have reported Him to the Romans and gotten Him in trouble that way
The religious leaders thought this was a lose/lose for Jesus, they had Him no matter what and would be able to discredit Him in front of the crowds and even arrest Him
What does Jesus do to respond?
Verse 6b-8
He kneels down, and He’s just writing in the dirt on the ground
He responds with calm and patience in this tense situation
Kneeling down reflects His humility.
He doesn’t get up on a rock or stand proud or demand silence from the crowds
Writing was something to draw the Pharisees attention and to get them to focus on what He was about to say
I have read so much speculation on what Jesus wrote
He was doodling, He wrote the verse in Leviticus about the law for adultery, He wrote some other scripture, He wrote sentence of death, He wrote out the names of the accusing Pharisees or even their sins
Whatever He wrote, He did it to calm the situation, and to be meek before this condemned woman
Think about what she had just been through
A sin of passion, having strange men burst in and the embarrassment of being walked in on during that act as well as being caught in an affair, being drug kicking and fighting to this crowd at the temple, all the yelling of the Pharisees and scribes, all the eyes watching you, being drug before this mighty prophet who some say was the Messiah
I’m sure she’s feeling shame, embarrassment, anger, betrayal, and feeling super guilty
And instead of getting yelled at, Jesus is quiet and calm
The Pharisees start to get angry with Jesus - “What should we do with her?!?” - pressing Him for an answer
Then Jesus stands up, and says something so amazing, “He who is without sin can throw the first stone.”
Who is guilty of sin in this incident?
The woman is
The man she had her affair with is
But the Pharisees were too
They had not followed their own law (both people needed to stand accused), they had tricked, lied, manipulated the situation. They didn’t have compassion, they had a lust for anger and vengeance
So Jesus doesn’t excuse the sin of the woman (we’ll talk about what He’s going to say to her in a moment), but He addresses the hypocrisy of the Pharisees
So often, we can be so quick to point out the sin in others’ lives - yet Jesus reminds us that we need to first look at our own hearts and our own lives, and see where we stand guilty before God, before being so quick to condemn and judge others.
Verse 9
The Pharisees hear what Jesus has to say, and one by one they start to leave, realizing that they stand guilty, they have sinned as well, and they have no right to execute any sort of judgement on this poor woman
I also think it’s interesting that they left from the oldest to the youngest. Why did they do that?
I know as I’ve gotten older, and the more I’ve grown in my faith, the more I realize I am so flawed and such a sinner.
Paul would say later in his walk that he was the chief of sinners, not brag or boast that he was a missionary or wrote most of the NT
When you’re young, you can feel that you have all the right answers, and you know the right way to go and it’s everyone else who is wrong
Just think about how you treat the advise/wisdom/direction of your parents many times - “They don’t know!”
When in fact they do know
So I think the older Pharisees, as soon as they hear Jesus say that, knew they were flawed and they had sinned, so they just leave
The younger ones may have thought at first that they weren’t at fault, the woman was, and Jesus too, but as they see their respected leaders leave, they start to realize that maybe they were wrong and they had sinned too.
Verses 10-11
So the Pharisees leave, the woman is left there standing before Jesus
For the first time, He stands up, He looks her in the eye and asks her a question, “Are there any accusers left?”
She says, no one
Jesus replies, neither do I condemn you
I have another question for you, back to the statement Jesus made earlier (He who is w/o sin can throw the first rock) - did Jesus have the right to throw the first stone at her?
Yes. He was w/o sin. He could have condemned her b/c He had not sinned. As God, He knows all things, so He knew that the accusation was true (He didn’t need witnesses). God is just, so He needs to execute judgement for sin
But instead of picking up a rock, He forgives her
Remember that we’re in the last 6 months of the life of Jesus, and we talked about last week that Jesus is starting to talk about His upcoming death more and more.
That was His whole mission in coming, to eventually die so that He could offer us forgiveness.
And I can’t help but think that He is looking at her, in love, His child that He created b/c we’re all His children that He created, and His thoughts are on the cross
“What I’m going to do in just a few months, can permanently offer forgiveness, so that you can finally be restored as my child”
Jesus looks at us the same way
He knows all the junk we’ve done. He doesn’t need a witness for all those things, even if they were done in secret, He knows it
He could judge us! He didn’t sin, so He could condemn us to death for what we’ve done (the sentence/punishment of the OT law is death).
But instead He looks at the nail prints in His hands and feet, reminders that He and we will have for all of eternity, and says, “I don’t condemn you, I love you, I died for you, I offer you my forgiveness.”
2 last things as we close
The woman had to accept His forgiveness
She could have said, “No Jesus, the OT law is clear, I must die for my sins, please pick up a rock and throw it at my face”
But she didn’t, she received God’s forgiveness
We need to accept God’s forgiveness. Just b/c He died for us doesn’t mean we’ve confessed that before Him and asked for & accepted that forgiveness.
We need to come to Him in humility, not taking it for granted, but humbly accepting that free gift of forgiveness
After He forgives the woman, He tells her to, “go and sin no more”
Forgiveness isn’t a license to keep on doing the same thing
As we’ve been saying the last few weeks, who you really think Jesus is will change your life and your actions
If you think He is your Savior, and He has forgiven you of all your sin, you’re going to want to live out of gratitude and not hurt Him by continuing to sin, but by wanting to live a righteous life instead
God doesn’t give us cheap grace that we can sin and sin and sin again and who cares, He wants us to take it seriously, to realize what it cost Him, and to reflect that with our lives
We’re going to do a very camp thing right now before we get into small groups
We all have sin in our lives, we all have things we struggle with
For the woman, it was lust/purity
For you, it could be the same thing. Maybe your sleeping with your BF/GF
Maybe it’s jealousy
Maybe it’s anger or judgement towards another person
Maybe it’s disobedience to your parents
Maybe it’s partying and drinking or smoking or something
Maybe it’s just struggling to love a certain person
Whatever it is, I want you to write it down on a piece of paper
Be specific. Don’t write your name, no one is going to look, no one is going to read it, but be honest before God.
Once you write it down, stay in your seat and silently pray and ask God to forgive you of that sin
Then crumple it up, and come put it in the bucket
Once everyone has done that, we’ll pray, and then dispose of the sins
Small Groups
Sample Small Group Questions
Sample Small Group Questions
Which sins do we tend to categorize as “big” sins (those that are worse than others)?
How do we treat people who have fallen into one of those so-called “big” sins?
Which sins do you think God classifies as “big”?
Why do we rush to point out other people’s sins?
Read Matthew 7:3-5. What does Jesus tell us our responsibility should be in looking at other people’s sins?
3 And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Knowing that we are sinners too and that we have our own planks to deal with, how should that affect how we treat others who sin against us?
What thoughts or emotions do you think the woman in our story had when the Pharisees drug her to stand before Jesus?
What do you think she thought or felt after Jesus forgave her?
How does God view us when we’ve sinned?
Read Romans 8:34. Knowing that, what should our response be when we’ve sinned?
34 Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised; he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us.
Prayer Requests & Group Prayer