The Feast is over.  Everyone went to his house it says there in the end of Chapter 7…back to be with their families, and back to their lives…everyone including Jesus.

 

Chapter 8 Verse 1, But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.  So Jesus also leaves and gets away with His Father and interesting He goes unto the Mount of Olives.  The Mount of Olives is significant in Jewish history as well as prophecy.  In 2 Samuel 15 we read how David fled to the Mount of Olives when he was running from Saul, weeping as he went up.  In Zechariah 14 we read that the Mount of Olives will be where Jesus will first set His feet when He returns after the Great Tribulation and on that day, the mountain will be split in two.

 

And so Jesus, maybe even weeping as David wept over the city going up onto the Mount that overlooked the Temple and the city…going to be with the Father, being held as it were in the arms of Everlasting, and remembering what is to come…how one day it will all close.  I doubt He slept at all…Look at the next verse.

 

Verse 2, Now early in the morning (daybreak in the Greek) He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him.  This doesn’t mean the entire city, this means all the people that were there in the temple came to Him.  And He sat down and taught them.  The proper position of a Rabbi was to sit and to teach.

 

Verse 3, Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery.  And when they had set her in the midst, they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act.  Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned.  But what do you say?”  (And here is the Biblical definition of a sucker) This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him.

 

They had sent officers to take Him, that didn’t work.  The full on force of the temple officers had no power against Jesus and so now they try a trap.  And we ourselves must be watchful in our own lives so that we are, as 2 Cor 2:11 says, not ignorant, or asleep at the wheel, when it comes to the devices of Satan.  He will full on attack sometimes and it will be so obvious to us that we are not wrestling against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12).

 

But at other times, He will be as sneaky as the serpent, even transforming himself into an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14) in order to trick you, get the best of you, cheat you, take advantage of you…play you like a puppet for his shear enjoyment as he watches you move into checkmate…and your family is torn apart, or your friend becomes your frenemies.  Your career, goes to its grave and he fiddles over the tombstone. 

 

Are you watching for this?  Are you on guard so that your family is protected?  Your children?  Oh how he wants to get to our little ones…take out a whole generation…and we’re so into us that he slips right in and steals.  We must not be ignorant of his devices.

 

So they’ve brought this woman to Jesus not grieved that God’s heart is broken because of the sin, not zealous for God’s law, not shocked at the conduct of this woman…but their object was to use this woman to exploit her sin and further their own evil designs.

 

I mean check the scene.  They were so anxious to discredit Jesus that they brought this woman right into the temple, interrupted His teaching and challenged Him to solve what must have seemed to them an unsolvable enigma.  “We got Him now!” But in their haste, they themselves had forsaken their own law.  Where was the man!?!?

 

Deuteronomy 22:22 says, “If a man is found lying with a woman married to a husband, then both of them shall die – the man that lay with the woman, and the woman; so you shall put away the evil from Israel.”

 

Leviticus 20:10 says, “The man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, shall surely be put to death.”

 

But they have brought no man.  They have only brought the woman to Him.  There was another that used a woman to set a trap that seemingly was inescapable.  And Adam was ambushed but Jesus, the Christ, the Savior of all men shattered the chains of that trick, as He will do here also.  Look what happens.

 

 

 

 

Continuing in Verse 6, But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear.  They are thirsty for blood.  They rushed in, interrupted Jesus teaching in the temple, quenched the Spirit, and now they blast condemnation, accusation and demand of Jesus an answer.  You ever do that?  Oh God why is he such a jerk?  Why is she this way or that way…Get em!  As we read this story and see our sin on other folks, aren’t we apt to want Jesus to strike them, or like erase their mouths?  Glad He doesn’t aren’t we?

 

But rather He calmly and simply stoops down and begins writing with His finger on the ground as though He did not hear them.  Verse 7, So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.”  And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.  Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last.

 

Now the Bible does not tell us what Jesus wrote on the ground, and so we can guess.  Some have guessed that He stooped down and began, from the oldest to the youngest, to write out their sins.  I personally do not accept that.  Why?  Because Jesus is not the accuser of the brethren…Romans 8:33-34 says that “it is the Christ who justifies God’s elect through His death and resurrection and furthermore, it is Christ who makes intercession for us.”

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He is the propitiation for our sins according to 1 John 2:2 which means that He has paid our debt, with His blood He has washed us clean, put away our sins and therefore made a way by which remaining completely consistent with His character and government, God the Father is able to bless and accept the sinner.  The propitiation does not procure God’s love or make Him loving towards us…He’s that already, but rather it renders it completely consistent for Him to exercise love towards sinners.

 

And so I can’t accept that Jesus wrote the sins, although many, although He could have, of these men who brought this woman to Him.  So what’s my guess?  I believe Jesus again, as we’ve seen before, acts in truth and in love.

 

It says back in verse 6 that He stooped down and wrote with His finger.  That reminds me of another time in the Bible that God wrote with His finger.  Exodus 3:18 says, “He gave Moses the two tablets of the Testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.”  I submit to you that what Jesus actually was writing there in the ground before they that stood so pompously in their self-righteousness, holding to the false fact that they were made righteous by following the law, was the very law that they themselves were breaking.

 

“Both of them shall die.”  “The adulterer and the adulteress.”  I submit to you, and I believe what is Biblically acceptable is simply that He wrote the truth.  And later in this chapter we will read that it is the truth that sets free.  One by one, interestingly enough, oldest to the youngest (which makes complete sense as the oldest would be first to recognize their own law and their own unrighteousness in my opinion) considered what He had written (that word there in the Greek for heard (those that heard it, being convicted by their conscience) is the word akouo meaning to comprehend, to consider, to understand) when they understood, they turned and left.

 

Now there’s just one other thing here before we move on that I think is acceptable if not probable and that is why does John tell us He stooped down and rose up and then stooped down again?  I believe that as He wrote on the ground there with His finger the law as it were, when He rose again, He stepped right over His writing signifying that He, the Christ, had come to fulfill the law!

 

Turn over to Col 2:13 – 15.  Jesus, faced with total unrighteousness…a woman caught in adultery, a religious elite in open disobedience to the law and a hateful trap set to bring Him down, and with His love and truth, He just overcomes it all!  And then He stoops back down to write…what is it that He wrote you might say?  Well we don’t know, maybe Hosea 3:1, “Go and love the woman who is committing adultery, just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who look to other gods.”

 

The rest of verse 9 says, And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.  Verse 10, When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours?  Has no one condemned you?”  She said, “No one Lord.”  And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”

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And so Jesus displays His glorious ministry, His mission…that He did not come to condemn the world, but that through Him, the world might be saved (John 3:17).  There are some that state their mission, proclaim their purpose…speak of their love of Jesus and His word, yet display something wholly different. 

Not Jesus.  He did exactly what He said He came to do and He was and is exactly who He said He is…and what’s more, He will do exactly what He said He will do.

 

He will return for us and call us to Himself in the clouds.  He will come again descending upon the Mount of Olives at the conclusion of the Great Tribulation.  He will call all people to His throne at that final Day of Judgment and utterly destroy all unrighteousness and forever establish His Kingdom in the new heaven, and new earth.  And, if asked, if invited by you, He will save you for that day, cleanse you from all unrighteousness, open your eyes to the truth, and fill you with the living water of the Holy Spirit!  His promises are true.  His actions are completely aligned with His word!  And so He is to be trusted!

 

I love how He meets this woman right where she is at…feeling ashamed, condemned…”woman, where are your accusers?”  Without condemners, there is none condemned…and so He pulls her right up out of the miry clay and onto the Rock!  “Lord (compare that with what the Pharisees called Him) there are none!”

 

And check this out!  Jesus then says “Look at Me daughter…neither do I condemn you!”  He didn’t say go and sin no more and then I won’t condemn you!  No!  It was the other way around!  No, He does not wink at sin, that’s not what I’m saying!  What I’m saying is that while we were yet sinners, enemies of the Kingdom, Christ died for us!  (Romans 5:8)  And then, in response to that love, we go…and compelled, constrained by His grace, His love…what He endured for us…we are straight up compelled not to roll around in the pig slop cemetery of sin!

 

John 1:17 says, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”  And Romans 5:21 says, “grace reigns through righteousness” and for man, that is a problem…man is not righteous!  That is a problem which God alone could solve.   That is a problem that God alone did solve at the cross of Calvary as He gave His only Son for the sins of the world.  The just requirements of the law, not abolished, but fulfilled by Jesus Christ.  The gospel, the good news! 

 

Verse 12, Then Jesus spoke to them again (who?   His disciples and those that were in the temple before they were interrupted…they’re still there, they’ve been watching all of this…and so have we…so then Jesus speaks to us this morning…) saying, “I am the light of the world.  He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

 

He says, I am the phos of the kosmos (light of the order, the world, in the Greek).  I am the One that brings truth to all of this.  I am the One that brings the power of understanding to all of this.  I am the One that brings clarity, purpose, redemption, quality, substance to all that you know…I am the only One.

 

He that comes to Me, joins with Me, follows Me, shall not walk in darkness…neat and demonstrative word here in the Greek, skotea, meaning darkness due to want of light…He that follows Me will be filled…will not grasp at nothingness hoping to find somethingness! 

 

 

 

He that follows Me will have the light of life!  You’ll see the truth of the kosmos, the world, the order of all things…and you’ll have the phos of zoe (in the Greek)!  Life everlasting, life eternal, life abundant, life full of joy, substance, direction and purpose! 

 

Truth will be illuminated all around you and even if attempted to be destroyed, even if attempts to trap you arise…unrighteous plans and plots and strife and even if the gates of hell rise against you…Liberty, life, zoe life, like a tree planted by the rivers of water bringing forth fruit, whose leaf does not wither, and whatever you do, wherever you go, LIFE!  (Psalm 1)

 

Jesus does not condemn, He defends!  He stands when this woman cannot.  She is busted!  And yet He sees fit to restore, to love, to set her free and sends her on her way to live!  That is the God of all mercy and comfort…that is the God who saved me!  That is the God I serve.