And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more. – John 8:11b
This story is always fascinating to me. The first thing that fascinates me is that how did this lady get caught in the “act of adultery”? The reason it’s fascinating is because it requires somebody to be spying on the people committing adultery because obviously, adultery is something you do in secret. It’s one of those things you do unbeknownst to others.
Secondly, who did the catching? Why were supposedly righteous and moral people in the vicinity of such heinous acts? I assume it was them who did the spying since they are the ones that dragged the lady to Jesus. But, let’s suppose that it was the man’s wife that dragged the lady to the Pharisees, which is understandable, but would they really have stoned the lady– probably not because it would be a failing on their part to rid sin by committing sin. However, it is interesting how they rationalize their own sin.
Thirdly, where’s the dude that she was in the “act of adultery” with? If I remember correctly, it takes two to commit adultery, otherwise, it’s not adultery. Why isn’t he being brought into the circle of stoning? Is this merely an oversight or a bad attempt to do the right thing the wrong way? Lastly, which follows my third fascination, if stoning is a sin, why is that more acceptable than the crime itself? Conclusion: people wrongly, and imprudently condemn people who, in essence, are no different than themselves. Now I want to get to meaty part of this scene.
Jesus, being Jesus, says, “I don’t condemn you….” This is not the same as saying, “whatever you do is okay by me because it didn’t hurt anybody.” Rather, this is Jesus saying, “you know what you did, but I’m not going to tell you what you did, just stop doing it because you know and I know what the implications are if you keep doing it.” This story, at face value, is about how deceitfully religious people try to trap Jesus.
But really, when you look at the story, it’s about using a bad situation and somebody’s bad decisions as a means of redemption. Jesus doesn’t only redeem the woman that was supposedly caught in adultery (I say this because all the witnesses didn’t want to testify), he redeems the witnesses’ (Pharisees) sense of righteousness as standing before God’s judgment. So before we ever have the nerve to be morally self-righteous, we need to shut our mouths and condemn no more because every person deserves a chance from us to go and sin no more. After all, WE were not condemned and WE received a second chance.
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