"Leave Your Life of Sin (John 7:53-8:11) Pastor Peter Yi July 22, 2018 (John 7:53-8:11) 53 Then they all went home, 8 1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say? 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her. 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? 11 No one, sir, she said. Then neither do I condemn you, Jesus declared. Go now and leave your life of sin. We need to say a couple things about this passage before getting into the sermon. First, in the paper copies of the Bible, you ll see a note just before the passage that says, The earliest manuscripts and many other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53-8:11. A few manuscripts do include these verses, wholly or in part, after John 7:36, John 21:25, Luke 21:38 or Luke 24:53). The other thing about this passage is that it is in italics. Why is that? Here s what it says in the preface to the NIV: Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11, although long accorded virtually equal status with the rest of the Gospels in which they stand, have a very questionable and confused standing in the textual history of the New Testament, as noted in the bracketed annotations with which they are set off. A different typeface has been chosen for these passages to indicate even more clearly their uncertain status. The NIV, NLT, ESV, NASB all contain similar notes related to this text. So, here s the question. Should they or should they not be included in the Bible? And then the second question is, should we or should we not preach and teach from it? The answer to the second question might already be answered since I am going to be giving a sermon on this passage. But what about the first question? Should this passage be included in the Bible? 650 McNicoll Avenue, North York, Ontario, M2H 2E1 Page 1 of 6
The response of nearly all modern-day Johannine scholars is, No. In preparing for this sermon I looked at six or seven very well respected evangelical commentaries written in the last 30 years, and all of them agree that it should not be included in the Bible. One respected commentator (Michaels) treats it as an excurses, as an aside, and so he jumps from 7:52 to 8:12. Another one puts it at the end of his commentary, in the appendix (Morris). Here s Leon Morris, The textual evidence makes it impossible to hold that this section is an authentic part of the Gospel. Here s Don Carson, Modern English versions are right to rule it off from the rest of the text or to relegate it to a footnote. In addition to this story being absent from most all early Bible manuscripts, Carson also adds, All the early church Fathers omit this narrative: in commenting on John, they pass immediately from 7:52 to 8:12. No [ancient] Eastern Father cites the passage before the tenth century. Now, let me read for you the authoritative statement that comes from Bruce Metzger, who is perhaps the foremost expert on the Greek New Testament text. And in any case, all the other commentators borrow from him in one way or another. One commentator merely adds a footnote saying, see Metzger pp. 219-222. Metzger says, The evidence for the non-johannine origin of the pericope [section] of the adulteress is overwhelming. It is absent from such early and diverse manuscripts as (and he gives a long list, which I won t repeat here). He goes on to say, When one adds to this impressive and diversified list of external evidence the consideration that the style and vocabulary of the pericope [section] differ noticeably from the rest of the Fourth Gospel, and that it interrupts the sequence of 7:52-8:12ff, the case against its being of Johannine authorship appears to be conclusive. In addition to that he adds, At the same time the account has all the earmarks of historical veracity. It is obviously a piece of oral tradition which circulated in certain parts of the Western church and which was subsequently incorporated into various manuscripts at various places. The earliest mention of this story, that s not found in any manuscripts, is from an early historian named Eusebius who lived from 263-339AD. In it he writes of a person named Papias. Now Papias is important because he lived from 60-163 AD and he was a bishop of the Eastern Church. His life would have partially overlapped some of the Twelve Apostles. He is said to have been a hearer of John the Apostle. John it is believed was the last surviving Apostle and so Papias was to have learned under him. And who is the author of the gospel we are looking at? The same John. In any case, Eusebius writes that Papias wrote about a similar incident between Jesus and a sinful woman. So we do not have any copies of Papias s original writings on this story, only Eusebius s account of what Papias wrote. That s why scholars believe that though it should not be accepted as part of Holy Scripture, they do believe that such a story actually did occur. Not everything that Jesus said or did is included in the Bible. Do you remember what John wrote at the end of his Gospel? Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. (John 21: 25) 650 McNicoll Avenue, North York, Ontario, M2H 2E1 Page 2 of 6
Does that mean our Bible is not trustworthy? No, in fact, scholars could have just kept their mouths shut and left it alone. It actually tells us that scholars want to remain faithful to the science of textual criticism, which is the science of determining what was the original text, when all we have are copies and there are variants between the copies. They don t want anything in the Bible that shouldn't be there, and they don t want to take out anything that should remain in. You and I can be very confident and assured that the Bible we have in our hands is the word of God without error. Now, even though we ve concluded, in agreement with New Testament scholars, that this story should not be in the gospel, is it okay to preach from it? Well, sort of. Pastors have landed on both sides. Some preach from it and others do not. Martyn Lloyd-Jones didn t. John Piper did. Alright, enough about that. Let s get into the text. The story is of a woman that was caught in the act of adultery. She is brought by the religious leaders before Jesus. A couple things to note. She was caught by at least two witnesses as that is the requirement of Scripture to bring a charge against someone. Second, where s the man? Did he escape? Was there an implied sexism going on here? Because the Scripture is clear in speaking to both parties that are involved in adultery. If a man commits adultery with another man s wife with the wife of his neighbor both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death. For reasons we are not told, only the woman is brought before Jesus. (Leviticus 20:10) Finally, something to notice that s important to the story is the motive of the religious leaders. The text tells us that they brought the issue before Jesus in order to trap Jesus: Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say? 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. Now this wouldn t be the first time. Several times we see in the gospels the religious leaders bringing a question to Jesus in the hopes of trapping him. What was the trap? Well with these kinds of traps, the ones doing the trapping think that there are only two ways to answer the question. If he answers one way, we get him on the other thing. If he answers on the other thing, we ll get him on the first point. So, what were the two ways? The question is whether we should or should not stone this woman. The fact that she has committed a crime is not disputed. If Jesus said no, then he would be going against the Law of God. He would make it seem that the sin of adultery is not a big deal, but if he answered yes, that we should stone her, then his reputation of being a man of great compassion towards the people would be at stake. In addition, he would be guilty of going above the rule of Roman law. Only the Romans were allowed to carry out capital punishment, as we see in the execution of Jesus. He was executed being falsely accused of treason against Rome. So, the religious leaders think that they ve cornered him. 650 McNicoll Avenue, North York, Ontario, M2H 2E1 Page 3 of 6
There is always tension that exists between justice and mercy. Now, if you ve had to officiate over any offence, either as a parent or even as a mediator between friends, or perhaps at the workplace, this is always a struggle. Some people, perhaps because of their Meyers-Briggs (personality) profiles, they are judgers. This is what the law says. The crime has been committed. There is no more need for discussion. It s time to hand down the sentence. And others land on the side of mercy. They want to give a second chance. They want to consider other factors, like it being a first-time offence and so on. I ve got to admit, that of all the things that come with being a pastor/elder of the church, the most difficult is handling issues of church discipline. It s one of the hardest things to do. Do you come down hard with law and judgment or do you show mercy? Is there a way to display both without compromising the other? It is really hard and requires a lot of wisdom, knowledge of the Bible, and a pure and compassionate heart. I think the Apostle Paul was incredibly wise in assigning a plurality of elders in each local church. I think he partly did that so leaders can better handle church discipline matters. It s much better to put several minds together than to leave it to just one person. I appreciate so much our pastor/elders when it comes to matters like this. So, is Jesus stuck here? Let s get back to the story. Jesus begins to write something on the ground. What he wrote we will never know. We can speculate until the cows come home, but we will never know. We can also ask, Why? Why did he start writing on the ground? It seems to be some sort of delay tactic. Maybe it was a way to refuse to speak to the accusers by writing his reply in the ground. Again we simply don t know. The accusers continue to badger him for an answer. He says this, Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her. He s not pulling these words out of a hat. He s referencing the law. Here s what the law required: The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting that person to death, and then the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from among you. (Deuteronomy 17:7) Jesus is telling them, you know what the law says, you know what must be done. The witnesses to the crime must be the first to issue the punishment but what happens next? One by one, they begin to leave. What does this expose? It exposes their motives. There motive was not to honor God and his Law. It wasn t to make sure sins like this don t start spreading throughout the community. If we turn a blind eye here, then sins like this will be commonplace. Nor was their motive to faithfully carry out, as difficult as it may be, the commands of God, so let s get Jesus opinion on the matter. No, their motive was merely to trap Jesus. People today are not that different. You can see it in their questions. They too are interested in trapping Jesus, or trapping one of his followers. So they come up with all these questions. They are not sincere questions like that of genuine seekers. They re often times the arrogant questions of the hardened skeptic. They have no intention of ever believing or even debating or discussing. They have no desire to have their minds changed. They are set in what they believe, and yet they ll throw out these questions to Christians. If God is all powerful can God create a rock so big that he himself cannot lift it? If God is love, then how come. You know how it goes. then how can he send people to hell? then why do bad things happen to good people? then why is there so much hate in the world? You know, in actuality, these are not bad questions. 650 McNicoll Avenue, North York, Ontario, M2H 2E1 Page 4 of 6
These aren t forbidden questions that shouldn t be asked. But what I m getting at are the motives behind the question. They re good questions if the motives are good. But if the motives are bad, then you have to ask yourself, why bother asking the question in the first place? The purpose of a question is to find out information that you do not know. The purpose of a question is not to show how smart and witty you are. The purpose of a question is not to make people look stupid. The purpose of a question is not to trap people. So, if you are a sincere seeker, I want you to know that this is a church community that loves your questions, any and all questions. There are no off limit questions. We may not know the answer right away, but we ll try to get you one. So ask away! Well back to the story. Now the only ones remaining are Jesus and the woman. Jesus stops his writing on the ground, straightens up and addresses her, Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? 8:11 No one, sir, she said. Then neither do I condemn you, Jesus declared. Go now and leave your life of sin. If Jesus is who he says he is. If he is truly the Messiah, God s anointed prophet, priest and king. If he is truly the Son of God, then he alone has the right to condemn the woman. He alone has the right to throw the first stone. But he doesn t. How is that possible? Remember we talked about the tension that naturally exists between justice and mercy? Doing one often compromises the other. However, there is one place and there is one person in which those two things come together perfectly. There is a place and there is a person where justice is fully executed without ignoring mercy. And at that same place and in that same person mercy is extended in its fullest without compromising even the most miniscule amount of justice. At the cross (that s the place) when Jesus died (that s the person) there was expressed the fullness of God s holy justice, not on sinners who deserved it, but on Jesus who didn t deserve it. When Jesus died on the cross he died as a substitute. He was a righteous man, a sinless man, yet he died in the place of sinners. The Bible tells us that when Jesus died he died as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 Jo 2:2; 4:10). The Greek word for atoning sacrifice literally means propitiation. A propitiation is a sacrifice that appeases wrath. Some churches wrongly don t believe in propitiation. The PCUSA for example was recently publishing a new hymnal and they wanted to include In Christ Alone by Keith and Kristen Getty. In the second verse of that song it says, In Christ alone, Who took on flesh, Fullness of God in helpless babe! This gift of love and righteousness, Scorned by the ones He came to save. 'Til on that cross as Jesus died, The wrath of God was satisfied For ev'ry sin on Him was laid Here in the death of Christ I live. The PCUSA asked the Gettys if that line could be replaced with another line. They didn t believe that the line about wrath was true. 650 McNicoll Avenue, North York, Ontario, M2H 2E1 Page 5 of 6
However, Scripture makes it terribly clear that God is a God of wrath against sin and sinners, against injustice. The Bible even says that we were by nature the objects of wrath (Eph 2:3). But it also says that it is Jesus who will rescue us from wrath (1Thes 1:10). How does he do that? By bearing the full force of the wrath of God, the wrath that we deserved for our sins, when Jesus himself died on the cross. That was justice. What about mercy? Jesus obviously did not receive mercy on the cross. He didn t even receive justice. He received injustice, because he hadn t committed any sins whatsoever, and in addition he perfectly obeyed God s commands and carried out God s will without fault. Then where is mercy? There is mercy for you and me, for sinners. At the cross the one who deserved honor and glory received injustice. And the ones who deserve justice, wrath, receive instead mercy. Let me spell out the nature of this mercy. 1. forgiveness 2. the righteousness, the perfection of Christ is imputed to you. 3. You are adopted into God s family and will have God as your father and Christ as your brother. 4. You will inherit eternal life. 5. You will be indwelt with God s Holy Spirit. None of this do we deserve. We deserve wrath, but instead of wrath we receive his undeserved mercy. Here on earth there will never be a perfect display of both justice and mercy. It will always fall short. It ll always leave us dissatisfied. But at the cross, in Jesus, both do meet perfectly. Like the woman caught in adultery, there is no sin that God cannot forgive. There is no cap to the amount of sins we commit that God cannot forgive. All of them are taken care of at the cross, through Jesus Christ. Let s pray. 650 McNicoll Avenue, North York, Ontario, M2H 2E1 Page 6 of 6