John 8:2-11 An Adulteress Forgiven

The church is growing and is very diverse, we have plenty of Spanish speakers. So Dustin invited me to speak and the entire thing will be in Spanish.

Jokes aside, we are going through the book of John and we are focusing on the conversations Jesus had with different people.

Today’s verse will focus on the events of John 8:2-11 labeled as "An Adulteress Forgiven" in our Bibles. The theme of the book of John is "these things are written so you may believe" and through the review of these conversations I will highlight two points for us to believe:

With that as an introduction, lets open in prayer:

Dear God, please let our minds and hearts be open to what you have to tell us today. We know that all Scripture is inspired by You and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting and for training in righteousness. So as long as I stay true to your word we will be blessed by this message. Holy Spirit please use me today and may I honor You as I speak.

OK, lets read the passage, then I’ll tell you why I asked Dustin to let me talk about this passage in particular.

We have a person who was caught in a sin that according to the law of Moses is punishable by death. Except that at that point in time Israel is not ruled by the law of Moses. They are under Roman occupation and are ruled by Roman law.

This is why this is a trap:

So Jesus either follows the law of Moses and stones her, making it so He breaks Roman law, or He doesn’t stone her so the Jews are upset at Him for not following the law of Moses.

This is the trap that they, the scribes and the Pharisees, laid out for Him and as you see in the verse He didn’t condemn her.

Now, the reason why I wanted to talk about these verses in particular is because these have been some of the most difficult Bible verses for me. I have struggled to understand this passage probably more than any other in the Bible.

Let me give you some background for you to understand why they are difficult to me.

As a child, probably at around 10, my parents got us a bike. One day I was riding my bike around town and an older kid stole my bike. I was heartbroken and even though people knew who stole my bike, I never got that bike back. It took a long while until my parents were able to afford another bike and during that whole time I felt like justice wasn’t served.

Now, that is a sad small example but at an early age I realized there is something wrong with the world and that justice is a key human need.

January 27, just recently, marks the 75th anniversary of the Auschwitz liberation by the Soviet army. Now, if there is an event in history that makes you cry for justice is the Holocaust.

Some come to God seeking for His grace, and some others seeking for His justice.

So, the reason why I have struggled so hard with these verses is because if not studied carefully they can be taken to mean that Jesus just said you can only punish sin if you don’t have sin in you. So basically no one could punish sin.

When I read this, I asked:

Lets dive into the text verse by verse to see what the Bible has to say:

People then and people now come to Jesus for many reasons, regardless if your initial motives to come to Jesus are pure or not, maybe you even got dragged to Church today, Jesus has something to teach you.

The Word of The Lord is living.

Where is the man? Scripture does say this whole event was a trap. If she was caught, surely the man was there.

This is always how the Devil works, giving half truths to people to mislead them.

Just like in the garden of Eden, when saying "Did God really say…​"?

The law does state that there are a group of sins that are punishable by death, however, the law also indicates that there are opportunities to give a ransom to pay for that sin.

The law says:

So God’s law does have provisions for the death penalty for various offences. The witnesses are extremely important and since by their testimony someone is going to die, they are the ones to first carry the sentence.

The law also says:

This indecency refers to adultery, so how is it that she gets a certificate of divorce and not death?

The law of Moses indicates that certain sin is more serious than some others, some sin deserves death. However, God’s intention is to "purge the evil from you", not to go around stoning people. He is clearly indicating that adultery is a sin of the highest severity but the actual punishment for it can be skipped if the husband writes the wife a certificate of divorce. Not all the details as to how are given but it is clear that not all cases of adultery are punished by death.

Scripture goes as far as telling us:

So to finish this point, sins punishable by death can be ransomed. Only intentional murder is not to be ransomed.

So I’ll wrap this whole idea by examining the next verse:

We already discussed the trap: Jesus either follows the law of Moses and stones her, making it so He breaks Roman law, or He doesn’t stone her so the people are upset at Him for not following the law of Moses.

Except that the law allows for a ransom, and what more ransom that the sinless incarnate Son of God dying on a cross for her sin and mine.

Jesus didn’t break the law, He came to fulfill it. In His words:

So this womans sin was ransomed by Jesus and He wasn’t breaking the law by not stoning her.

This brings to a close the first point of my sermon, God’s law didn’t change, it was fulfilled by Jesus. God is the same yesterday, today and forever.

So lets recap my initial questions:

Now, this is the important part of the sermon, my second point:

Lets get back to scripture:

Again, this being a trap and scripture not telling us what He wrote we can only guess.

One thing I am sure of:

So maybe He just rebuked them but it worked.

From the law, out of the witnesses the first true witness be the first one to throw a stone at her. And there were none.

This verse is often misquoted, along with:

Because of time, lets just be clear in that just because we are all sinners doesn’t mean we can’t judge someone else.

Justice is a key human need and God is both fully Just and full of Grace.

Just because I occasionally yell at my children doesn’t mean I shouldn’t call social services if I see a parent actually beating up their child.

So lets not take things out of context to justify our actions or let others do so and confuse all.

Next verse:

I do find it very interesting that the older ones were the first to leave and to be honest, the older I get the gentler I get because I can look back at this long list of mistakes I have done in my life and empathize when I see the flaws of others. Age brings that humbling wisdom.

Even though I know I still look like 25.

In our theme of conversations with Jesus, we can see how after he had the conversation with the crowd, now he is having a conversation one on one with the woman. At the end of the day, regardless of what others say about you, good or bad, the only thing that matters is what Jesus says about you.

He could either say: I don’t know you.
Or he could say: I don’t condemn you.

Even though she hit rock bottom and found her sin publicly exposed Jesus was there to redeem her. God is chasing after all of us, He loves us all. But sometimes the only way we will listen to him is when we have nowhere else to go.

When I became a Christian I did it because there was nowhere else for me to go really. I was in engineering school in University and was being taught about the scientific philosophy and all I could find there was a swiss cheese full of holes. If life ends when you pass away and you are nothing but a machine dancing to the notes of your DNA then I saw no purpose. If the end is nothing I figured the most pragmatical thing to do was to get there faster and so that was what I had set to do. But it was then when Jesus showed Himself to me and opened my eyes to the reality of the spiritual world and He gave me an invitation to come into His kingdom. At that low point he accepted me, forgave me and gave me purpose.

Just so you don’t think you are somehow different from this woman or from myself, there was a man that spend eight years in a labour camp for criticizing Josef Stalin. His name was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. After living that hell he wrote this:

Sin runs through all of us and when we ask for justice we need to ask for justice for our own actions as well.

But Jesus not only recognized her sin, He invited her into the kingdom, and then He told her, go and sin no more.

Jesus was the last witness, there was need for justice for her actions but Christ payed the penalty on her behalf.

And because of that redemption He send her to live a life free from sin.

Now, freedom from sin doesn’t mean you won’t sin anymore. No one here is capable of that. What it means is that sin is not the main reality of our lives and that we are not in bondage anymore. It means that through Christ, our hearts will be changed so we will want to sin no more.

So lastly, to close my point on in Christ we can have freedom from sin, I’ll give you some practical steps for you to move further in your walk to freedom.

Follow these and you will have freedom from sin.

Now, lets close in prayer to prepare for the Lord’s supper.

Lord we come to the elements in remembrance of You.
We take the bread that represents your body broken to pay for my injustice.
We take the juice that represents your blood spill to forgive our sin.
Please let us believe that you are a trustworthy God that doesn’t change and that through your sacrifice on the cross we can rest on a life with freedom from sin.
We know that what you have started in our hearts you will continue to work and perfect.
We pray this in Jesus name.

Amen!

Please spend a moment of silence and if you are a Christian then lets partake in communion. If you are not a Christian don’t feel obligated.