Mercy for the Accused

Audio Transcript

Let me invite you, please, to take your Bibles and turn to John chapter 8. We finished in chapter 7 last week, and we’ll look at the first 11 verses of chapter 8 today.

It’s interesting as you look back through much of recorded history. You see that societies along the way seem to rather enjoy not just punishing wrongdoers, but putting them on display. People were placed in stocks in the town square for everyone to see and even to throw things at. Some were chained together and paraded through the streets in shame. And then, of course, there was the scarlet letter sewn onto the dress for everyone to see and to what had been done.

And you know, we think we’re such an advanced society. We like to believe that we’ve progressed beyond that. But I’m not sure we really have. The methods have changed, but we can still shame people just as easily from the quietness of our hearts, or through the whisper among friends, or in the public square of social media. It’s actually, I think, never been easier to destroy someone’s reputation. It’s never been easier to throw stones. Some people are comfortable lobbing grenades from behind a keyboard, and they would never say those things to your face. So we’ve passed beyond some of that, what we might call primitive public shaming of people who’ve done wrong, but I don’t think we’ve advanced very far. We’re still doing it in different ways.

And what we’re going to look at this morning is something that happened 2,000 years ago, but man, is it relevant for us today. It has so much to teach us, and I believe every one of us in this auditorium this morning is going to be able to find ourselves somewhere in these verses.

Well, I don’t always do this, because sometimes I’ll just read one verse and we’ll begin talking about it, but I’m going to read all 11 verses to set the scene. So if you’re able, would you mind standing in honor of God’s Word as we read this section?

This first verse really belongs at the end of the last chapter. We saw that the Pharisees sent guards to arrest Jesus while He was teaching in the temple area, and the guards heard Him speak and were powerless to arrest Him. And they came back and reported, “No one ever spoke like this man.” And the Pharisees were furious, and then the last verse of chapter 7, it said they each went to their own home. And here in verse 1, it says, “But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives,” and He would go there at night with His disciples and spend the night and then come back and teach in the temple courts during the day.

Verse 2: “Early in the morning, Jesus came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him, and He sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had placed her in the midst,” or literally placed her before the entire group, “they said to Him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us that such women should be stoned. But what do You say?’ They said this to test Him,” or to tempt Him, or to trap Him, “that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger as though He did not hear.” Verse 7:

“So when they continued asking Him, He stood up and said to them, ‘Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.’ And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went away one by one, beginning with the oldest. And Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before Him.” Verse 10: “When Jesus had stood up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, ‘Woman, where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Now go and sin no more.'” Amen. You may be seated.

It was common practice in that day for people to gather in the temple courtyards very early in the morning and listen to the rabbis teach. They did this before the heat of the day set in. And this particular morning, Jesus has gone there once again, and a crowd has come to hear Him. And I try to picture this scene in my mind. You know, I’ve been there and walked through some of these places that they’ve unearthed, and I just wonder if maybe the first rays of sunshine were starting to paint that gray morning sky with red and orange and purple, and light was beginning to be cast across the courtyard.

Maybe you could hear Jesus’ voice echoing down those marble colonnades. And the people are engaged in His teaching, and what a beautiful moment this must have been. I’m sure you could hear birds waking up and singing their morning songs. But then suddenly this peaceful scene is shattered. The scribes and the Pharisees, we’ve learned so much about them now already in the life of Christ, they come pushing through the crowd, and they’re dragging a woman along with them, a woman who had been caught in adultery. But she wasn’t the real target. Jesus was. We must understand they didn’t come for justice. They came to take Jesus down.

It tells us plainly they did this testing Him, that they might have something by which to accuse Him. Let’s not forget they hated Jesus. These are, well, this is not a correct comparison, but just to try to put it in modern terms, these were the pastors of the day. These were the, the Bible seminary professors of the day. These were the religious pinnacles that people looked to when they wanted to see what God was like. They looked to these men, and these are the men who hated Jesus. And we’ve already seen, as we’ve studied through His life so far, there have been many times when it said, “And from that day on they looked for a way to kill Jesus.” They’ve been watching Him closely, looking for a reason to arrest Him, but now they’ve gone from looking and waiting to purposely setting a trap for Him.

And they drag this woman in, and they put her purposely in the middle of Jesus’ Bible study, if you will. Imagine if the doors burst open back there. John, you’re going to be on it, right? And imagine if eight or ten pastors from Greenville come dragging a woman in here and drag her up and set her right up here on this stage. That’s the kind of shock that would have taken place in this beautiful, peaceful moment of teaching. This woman isn’t invited into the circle. She’s put there in front of everybody because they didn’t care about her. She was just a prop in their scene.

You know, I won’t go into details. Sandy knows exactly what I’m talking about. But a friend of our daughter’s from high school, who spent a lot of time in our house, as many of them did, was dating a pastor’s son of a very large church here in town, and she became pregnant. And the church dragged that boy and girl up and made them stand on the stage in front of several thousand people and publicized their sin. Now, you know, you can look at that either way. I just have a hard time. And that little girl will never darken the door of a church again. So this is what happened here.

Notice what they said: “This woman was caught in the act of adultery.” Which raises the obvious question, do you have a question about this? Where’s the man? He’s not standing there with the accused woman. No charges have been brought against him, not a single accusation.

See, these religious experts are already breaking the very law they claim to be defending by only quoting part of it. Because the law of Moses, back in, about this specific sin, in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, says very clearly that both the man and the woman had to be brought in together or no judgment could be passed. They know that. They’re the experts. And yet they’ve chosen to skip around part of the law and only focus on the part that mattered to them. They only brought her. They’d let the man go. Why? Was he perhaps part of this plot? Well, I don’t know. Our mind can go in many different directions. We’re not told, so we have to be careful.

But here’s how they thought this was going to work. They bring this woman before Jesus. They announce the charge, and they ask Jesus for a verdict. If Jesus said, “Stone her,” He would then be contradicting His reputation as a friend of sinners, someone who loved and forgave the broken. If He said, “Let her go,” He would be breaking the law of Moses, which would mean He couldn’t be the Messiah He claimed to be.

So the Pharisees, they’re very proud of themselves, I’m sure, because either way, they have Him right where they want Him. There’s no escape for Jesus here, at least they thought. And what they didn’t count on was that they had walked into the courtroom of the only Judge who could see the woman’s sin and their sin. They weren’t counting on that part.

So they’ve made their accusation. They’re waiting for Jesus to respond, but He doesn’t say a word. By the way, the FBI and the CIA and other law enforcement divisions use this very tactic today to defuse dangerous situations. If you ever want to, you know, most of the time when people come at you, all they want is a reaction. They want to see you get angry or scared. If you don’t react at all, it really shorts some circuits out. They’re not quite sure what to do.

Jesus doesn’t say a word. In fact, it’s more bizarre than that. He stoops down and He begins writing in the dust on the floor of the temple courtyard. This, by the way, is the only time in the Gospels we’re ever told that Jesus wrote anything. And frustratingly, it doesn’t tell us what He wrote. This has been a matter of speculation for 2,000 years. I’ve spent time trying to piece some things together from the Old Testament. I’m probably wrong. We don’t know what He wrote.

Some have tried to tie this back to when God came down and wrote with His finger on the tablets of stone, the Ten Commandments. Some have tied it also to when Belshazzar threw that drunken party and was drinking from the sacred vessels they had stolen from God’s temple, and the hand appeared and wrote on the wall, “You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.” I don’t know. Some think He was writing the names of each of those men along with their sins. Possible.

As He’s doing this, they kept demanding for Him to answer. Finally, Jesus stood up and spoke one of the most powerful sentences that has ever been uttered in the history of the world. He said, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

That word “first” is not incidental, I don’t believe. The Old Testament law required that the witnesses who brought the charge had to be the ones to throw the first stone at the person. You’ll find that in your Old Testament. So it was a way of saying, be very sure before you bring this charge against someone that it’s absolutely right and you actually want to go through with this. No doubt there were times when someone rushed to judgment and dragged someone in before the priests and the leaders and said, “He needs to be stoned.” They said, “Well, according to the law, you’ve brought the charge. You have to be the first one to throw the stone.” I’m sure there were times when they changed their mind.

Jesus, in so many things that He said in His life and ministry, referred back to the Old Testament. He ties it in very often. So I have no doubt that He’s making a reference to that law, which again they would know. But these very Pharisees who brought her, one of them had to be the first one. Not the crowd, not Jesus. The accusers themselves had to throw the stone with their own hands. Jesus isn’t inventing a new standard here. He’s just stating what the law had already demanded, and then He’s kind of asking a devastating question underneath it. You know, “Are you really qualified to be her witness? Or are you perhaps guilty of the very same thing that you’re condemning her for?”

Well, whatever it was, those words, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her,” those words pierce the heart of every man there. Because it says they walked away one by one. There are a handful of moments in the Bible I would love to have been there. This is one.

These Pharisees are learning again for themselves what the guards had just told them in the previous chapter: “No one ever spoke like this man does.” And now the Pharisees come all cocky and on their high horse, going, “We got Him now, boys.” And with just a few simple words, Jesus dismantles their entire argument and turns the tables, puts a mirror in front of every one of them so that they’re utterly ashamed at what they’ve just done. Remarkable. That’s why the people said, “Jesus doesn’t teach like our teachers. He speaks as one who has authority.”

And it says an interesting thing here. Have you ever thought about this? It says the older ones left first. They left starting with the oldest, or the older. Why is that? Again, speculation abounds. I wonder if it’s as simple as the fact that the longer you’ve lived life, the more aware you are of all the sins you’ve committed. You know, no offense to all of you in your teens or 20s, but, you know, “Y’all don’t know nothing.” Just give it time.

You know, man, when I was 20, I was so arrogant. I knew everything. I could argue people under the table. And now that I’m a tad older, I just realize, boy, Phil, in fact, I was saying to someone the other day that I met with from our church here, the older I get, the less I want to say. It’s really true. The less I want to say. It’s getting harder and harder for me to come up here every Sunday and open my mouth. Really, because the older I get, I look back and I go, “Boy, you’ve really messed some stuff up, pal. How gracious God is to put up with you.” See, could be. With age, hopefully comes some wisdom. So I think maybe that’s what they’re saying here. The young ones were still like, “Let’s get Him.” The old ones are going, “No, actually, He’s right. I’m going to head on home.”

See, every man in that crowd, when confronted with his own sin instead of someone else’s sin, discovered that he didn’t want a courtroom after all. He wanted an exit. “If it’s somebody else’s sin, bring in the judge. But if it’s my sin, hey, let’s take a recess.”

See, we can measure ourselves against the sin of others, and we can be quick to pass judgment. But that’s the wrong standard. When we measure ourselves against the holiness of God, we realize how desperately we need mercy, not judgment.

Who are you comparing yourself with? The Bible says, “Comparing yourselves among yourselves is not wise.” As far as I know, there’s only two possible outcomes: pride or discouragement. You’re either going to think you’re better than the person you’re comparing to, or you’re going to think you don’t measure up. Both are deadly.

So when Jesus says this remarkable sentence, “Whoever among you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her,” man, they were struck with conviction. These hardened religious leaders. The most common word Jesus used for these men was “hypocrites.” He said, “On the outside you’re all polished and clean, but on the inside you’re full of death and rottenness and wickedness.” Well, He got through that hard exterior shell, and He hit their heart with this one. And they left. And verse 9 says, “Then Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before Him.”

What a moment this must have been. Goodness. Every stone has been dropped. Every accuser is gone. Just Jesus and the woman who was certain she was going to be put to death.

Verses 10 and 11: “When Jesus had stood up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, ‘Woman, where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.'”

Now, I must add this in just for clarity. I would advise you men not to go around calling ladies “woman.” You know, “Hey, woman, come over here.” It doesn’t fly well today. That word in the Greek was not rude at all. Jesus is not being rude at all. In the original language, it’s the same word that Jesus used to comfort His own mother from the cross. It’s the same word He would use to calm Mary Magdalene’s fears at the empty tomb. It was a term of tenderness and kindness.

And after being treated so harshly by these Pharisees, what had they said to her along the way? What condemning words had they spoken to her? After all that, this woman hears Jesus speak to her with such kindness. And when she looked, I wonder, did she know? Did she sense that for the first time in her life she was looking into sinless eyes? A Man who would not take advantage of her. A Man who would never harm her. And He asked her this question. He knew the answer. He wanted her to know. “Where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?”

My guess is up to this point she had been standing there with her head hung down, looking at the ground. And now she looks up nervously, looks to her left and to her right, and she says, “There’s no one, Lord. There’s no one.”

And then in the last part of verse 11, Jesus speaks what I believe have to be the most life-giving words anyone could ever hear. Look at it. The last part of verse 11, Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you. Now go and sin no more.”

It’s interesting, the only One there without sin, the only One who actually had every moral right to condemn her, is the One who refused to do so. Why? Because even though she was guilty under the law, Jesus offered something that the law never could. You see, we looked at this as we were going through the Old Testament, and I mentioned to you that all of the Old Testament law, the law of Moses, it could diagnose sin, it could pass sentence on sin, but it could not forgive sin. Only Jesus can do that. I think it’s summed up more concisely and perfectly in Romans chapter 8 than anywhere else that I know of on this particular issue.

Look at this, Romans 8, verses 3 and 4: “For what the law could not do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man as an offering for sin. He condemned sin in the flesh so that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”

When Jesus came to die in our place, it was called, someone called it, the great exchange. And it certainly is. He took the curse that we deserved and gave us His righteousness instead. Galatians 3:13 says, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.” That Blessed One, the only sinless One who’s ever walked this earth, chose to become a curse for us that we might be forgiven.

2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made Him, Jesus, who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” I don’t have anything greater to tell you. Not even if I won a Ferrari 488, that would have to still take second place to this news. This is the greatest thing ever. You’ll never discover anything better in your lifetime than this. He became sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

Jesus stepped in between that broken woman and those men with the rocks. And He said, “There’s nothing to condemn her for, because I’m taking her sin on Myself, and I will pay for it on the cross.” And the same applies to you.

The same thing applies to you if you’ve received the forgiveness that Jesus offers. And you say, “Well, you know, I know that intellectually, but if I’m really forgiven, why don’t I always feel forgiven?” Anybody in that boat ever? “Okay, I hear what you’re saying, Phil, but why don’t I always feel forgiven?” Well, because Satan will continue to accuse you. Other people may continue to accuse you, and you will most certainly continue to accuse yourself. But Jesus does not accuse you.

If you’re saved, you need to hear this. Every time that weight of guilt comes over you for things that you’ve done in the past, you need to remember what Jesus told that woman. And think of her condition. We’re not talking about something she did 20 years earlier. She was caught in the act. It doesn’t get worse than that. She was guilty, and still Jesus looked at her and said, “I don’t condemn you.”

Why? Because He didn’t come to condemn us. He came to save us. You go, “Phil, you’re leaning a little bit onto your own theology there, maybe.” Well, let’s take a look at a real familiar verse, shall we? Ever heard of John 3:16? Everybody’s heard of John 3:16. Even people who’ve never been in church can probably quote most of John 3:16. The problem is nobody ever reads the next verse.

John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Here it is: “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” That’s why Jesus came. He didn’t come to condemn people. He came to save them.

Whenever you bring your sin to Jesus, He’s always going to say, “I don’t condemn you. That’s why I died for you. Your debt has already been paid.”

Imagine paying your car off. You make that last payment, and you get the title in the mail. And then you keep sending checks to the dealership, and if they’re honest, they’ll say, “Hey, hey, what are you doing? You, it’s paid for. There’s nothing more to pay.” “Oh, no. I feel like I need to pay for this car.” Well, you’d be nuts if you did that, wouldn’t you? And yet we do this. We do exactly the same thing with our salvation. “Oh, God, I need to keep trying to pay for this.” Like He says, “What? There’s, it’s a zero balance. There’s, there’s nothing to pay for. I paid for it all on the cross.” Our brains have a hard time receiving that because it’s not fair. It’s not fair on Him.

If you have been saved, you’ve been forgiven. You will never be condemned by God. Romans 8:1: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

That woman who was condemned by the law was pardoned by love. Reminds me of the words of that great old hymn: “The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen could ever tell. It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell. The guilty pair bowed down with care, God gave His Son to win. His erring child He reconciled and pardoned from his sin. Oh, how thankful we should be for God’s amazing love.” When’s the last time you thought about that?

But I need to start wrapping this up, and I need to be very clear about something before we go home. I need to be very clear about what Jesus did not say to this woman. If I left this off, I would be doing you a disservice. He didn’t say, “Go, because your sin doesn’t matter.” He said, “Go and sin no more.” It’s proof that He took her sin seriously. He didn’t excuse her sin. He called it exactly what it is: sin. And then He told her to leave it behind and walk in the new life that only He can provide. That’s what a genuine encounter with Jesus does. It doesn’t leave you the same. It doesn’t.

2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.” Jesus said to that woman, “Neither do I condemn you.” That’s justification, being declared not guilty. And then He said, “Now go and sin no more.” That’s sanctification, being called to live differently. You can’t have one without the other. And only Jesus can give both.

Justification without sanctification is license. Sanctification without justification is religion. Let me explain that very quickly. Justification without sanctification is license, meaning if God forgives a person but that person’s life never changes, then they’re treating God’s grace like a free pass to do whatever they want. Paul said, “Don’t you dare.” Don’t you dare treat God’s grace that way. On the other hand, sanctification without justification is nothing but religion. It’s trying to make yourself holy through hard work and strict rules without actually ever having been transformed by grace on the inside. That turns faith into a man-made system. Only Jesus can make you new on the inside and empower you to live a changed life. And that’s what He’s saying to this woman.

The Pharisees walked away in their sin because they didn’t believe that they needed forgiveness. The woman walked away forgiven because she knew that she did. Jesus said, “I’ve not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” If you’re a righteous person this morning, you’re in a very dangerous place.

Romans 5:1-2: “Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”

So let me ask you as I try to close this: Where do you find yourself in this event? You know, too often, too often I think we live either holding stones or waiting to be struck by one.

Maybe you would have to be honest and say you’re the one holding the stone. You’ve built a respectable life. You’ve never been caught in anything like this woman was. And you’ve gotten so used to measuring your own righteousness by how many sins you can point out in others. That’s your gauge of being righteous. That’s you this morning. Listen one more time to what Jesus said in that courtyard: “Let him who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.” None of us qualify. Not one. It’s time to put the stone down. Because at the foot of the cross, we all stand in need of the same mercy.

Or, perhaps you’re this woman. Maybe it’s not adultery, but it’s some sin, some wound, some failure from the past that constantly haunts you and condemns you, and you’re certain God can never forgive. Listen, I want to tell you, Jesus knew this woman’s sin fully, and He still loved her fully. You think Jesus is going to be scared away by your sin? He already knows it all. He knows it all. Because it all had to be paid for by Him on the cross, and He already did that.

Romans 5:8: “But God demonstrates His love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Do you hear that? While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He knows about your sin. He knows your whole story. And that’s why He came. To pay the penalty for it and to call you out of it. Just as He did to this poor broken woman.

You’ve got to believe me when I tell you, again, we have a hard time in our flesh coming to terms with this because we categorize sin, and we put different values on different sins. And so we go, “Well, you know, when I was in kindergarten, I stole a pencil. I mean, this guy, you know, he robbed a bank.” Doesn’t matter what you’ve done, big or small. No sin is too dark for Him. No past is too broken. No failure is too severe for the grace of Jesus Christ. The One who lifted that unnamed woman out of the lowest moment of her life is able to lift you out of yours.

But you must come to Him. And when you do, you’ll find that the hands that could have held a stone were pierced by nails instead for you. He took the condemnation so that you could be forgiven. Do you know Him today? If you do, oh, what a great time to give Him thanks for what we’ve just looked at this morning. If you don’t come to Him today, this Savior, the most beautiful One who ever lived, stands looking at you as He did to that poor woman. He says, “I don’t condemn you. I condemn your sin, but I don’t condemn you. I love you.”

Receive the forgiveness and the salvation that He offers. If I can help you with that this morning, please come and let me know. I would love to do so.