John 7:53-8:11 contains an account of the efforts of the scribes and Pharisees to ensnare Jesus. They brought a woman to Him who had been taken in adultery and said, “Teacher, this woman hath been taken in adultery, in the very act. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such, What sayest thou of her?” (John 8:4-5). It does not take a Solomon to perceive the thrust of their question. They lived under the rule of Rome, and Rome did not allow subjected nations, except in rare and exceptional cases, to exercise the death penalty. Had Jesus told these men to stone her, He would immediately had been “in trouble” with the Romans.
On the other hand, if Jesus would have said, “Don’t stone her,” He would have lost His influence with the Jews. Whichever way He answered, He would have been at odds with either the Roman authorities or His own nation, or so they reasoned. These men were not very wise in their efforts; the day before they had heard Jesus teach in the temple and said, “How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?” (John 7:15). Jesus had not been trained in any of the prestigious schools of their rabbis, yet He demonstrated wisdom and knowledge that rivaled those who had.
He silenced the Herodians when they asked, “Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar?” (Matthew 22:17). The purpose of the Herodians was the same as the scribes and Pharisees in John 8. They intended to put Jesus at odds with either Roman authorities or else with the Jewish multitude. Jesus’ answer, “Show me a denarius,” followed up with the question when they showed Him the coin, “Whose inscription is this?” When they answered, “Caesar’s,” Jesus’ answer left them speechless: “Render therefore to Caesar the things which be Caesar’s and the things that are God’s to God” (Matthew 22:21).
On the Tuesday before Jesus’ crucifixion, known as the great day of questioning, Jesus disarmed the Sadducees of what they considered an “unanswerable” question: the story of one woman who had married in sequence seven brothers. They asked, triumphantly, “In the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven for they all had her” (Matthew 22:23-33). To their astonishment and amazement their argument was shredded. Jesus told them, “It is for this cause that ye err because ye know not the power of God nor the scriptures. In their resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are of the angels of God.” Now these scribes and Pharisees were also about to learn their own folly.
Unlike Jesus’ exchanges with the Herodians or the Sadducees with their hypothetical questions, He did not at first answer them. Instead, He stooped down and began to write on the ground with His finger. They were insistent, perhaps supposing that Jesus’ failure to answer was that He did not know how to answer them. They persisted with the question of should they stone the adulterous woman or not? If such was their thinking, they were about to learn differently, to their dismay and chagrin.
At length Jesus stood and said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” Then, He stooped down and once more wrote on the ground. Slowly, one by one the woman’s accusers began to walk away, from the oldest to the youngest. Finally, all had walked away. Jesus then stood and said to the woman, “Woman, where are they? Did no man condemn thee?” The woman said, “No man, Lord.” Jesus then said, “Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more” (John 8:7-11).
Some say that in the original text, Jesus said, “Let him that is without the same sin, cast the first stone.” I am not a Greek scholar so I cannot say that was what Jesus said. They were not interested in what they were to do in the same circumstance, and Jesus had seen through their hypocrisy. They were correct in stating that Moses had said that those taken in the act of adultery were to be stoned to death. But that would include the man as well as the woman. They had the man in their hands as well, but they let him go. Why? Whatever verdict Jesus gave for the woman would have been the verdict for the man as well, but they had not brought him.
Still, it was not necessary for Jesus to say, “Let him that is without the SAME sin, cast the first stone at her.” Some of them may have been guilty of the same sin that the woman was, but even if they were not, they knew they had sinned. And under the Law, deliberate sin such as this one was punishable by death. They now saw that whatever the verdict they received for the woman, would be the same for them.
We can see the faults of others. It is harder to see our own. The woman had sinned, but so had they for “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The penalty for the sin of the woman was, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). But that was the same sentence they too lived under. They, like the woman, needed God’s mercy and grace. These men came to ensnare Jesus with whatever answer He gave. They left with the knowledge that instead of ensnaring Jesus, they had only ensnared themselves. Somehow, while we may ask for “justice” for the sins of others, when it comes to our own sins, we don’t want justice — we beg for grace and mercy.
Today is the day of God’s grace and mercy but there comes a time in which, if man has not secured forgiveness, it will be too late to do so. Let not that day overtake us. “Today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” It is folly to argue and contend with God.
Jim McDonald