He Sees Us

‘Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”’ John 8:10

While researching this story in John, I read and re-read the verses and reviewed several commentaries. While doing this, this feeling of frustration really began to bother me. What bothered me? How the Scribes and Pharisees didn’t even see her. They didn’t see this woman who they said committed adultery, a woman they very well may have set up in this situation, all in order to try and trap Jesus.

You see, she meant less than nothing to them. A tool for them to use to maneuver Jesus into a corner.

They were dishonest in this situation. How is that?  Where was the man that she committed the adultery with? Per Deuteronomy 22: 23-24 as well as Leviticus 20:10, they BOTH were to be brought to be judged for the adultery. Not just her.

And I can only imagine the humiliation that she felt. Standing there, in the midst of not just Jesus and the Scribes and Pharisees, but everyone that was in that courtyard listening to Jesus teach that morning. All of them there, watching what was happening and waiting to see how Jesus would respond. She likely meant nothing to them either…only the anticipation on how Jesus would respond seemed to matter.

Why was this happening to her?

It was happening for two reasons. First, it happened because the Pharisees hated Jesus. They hated that He continued to heal on the Sabbath and that He made Himself equal with God…they wanted to kill Him… and they needed a reason to do so. And more importantly, it happened to show again who Jesus is, that is He is fully just and fully compassionate. He is the Son of God.

In the days before this incident, the Pharisees had sent officers to arrest Him, and they planned to, until they heard Him speak themselves…making the Scribes and Pharisees even more angry. During His teaching in these days, which was occurring during the Feast of Booths, He had been speaking even more boldly than He had been about who He was. That He had come from God and His teachings were from God. Many were beginning to wake up to the possibility that He may be the Christ, the Messiah they had been waiting for, while others questioned these things… the people were being divided. Not too unlike today.

Jesus called out those that doubted Him including, well, especially the Scribes and Pharisees. In Chapter 7 v. 19 Jesus said to them; “Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?”

The crowd didn’t understand why He said what He did and wondered if He had been possessed by a demon. They didn’t understand that He knew their thoughts. This is just one of several times Jesus spoke of Moses and the Law in these last days leading up to this Scripture.

The Pharisees decided to use the law to return the favor…so they use her.

They catch her, in the act with a man that was not her husband (believed to be her betrothed husband-making the likelihood that she was very young), and they bring her into the Temple courtyard where Jesus is teaching and places her at the center of everyone that was there…and they challenge Him.

“Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.  Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” John 8:4

They figured that, whatever answer He gave, He’d be in trouble. If He agreed with them, then He had been lying throughout His ministry when He stated that sinners should be shown compassion and forgiveness… and He’d would be going against Rome, as the Jews were not allowed to do capital punishment in most instances.  And if He disagreed with them, then He was speaking against the Law of Moses, for adultery/sin had to have consequences. They had Him trapped…or so they thought.

Rather than addressing them, he bends down and writes in the dirt. What does He write? We don’t know. We’re not told. Did He write their sins, beginning with the worst of them? Did He write their names? Did He write hers?

One idea I think is interesting is that He wrote a quotation from Jeremiah 17:13;

O Lord, the hope of Israel,
    all who forsake you shall be put to shame;
those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth,
    for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water.

Note; if it was meant and important for us to know what He wrote, we would have been told.

And while He wrote in the dirt, their anger seemed to grow as they badgered Him for an answer.

And they get one; He stands up, looks at them and says-

“Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” John 8:7

You see, when the Pharisees said;  ‘in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such a woman’, this could reflect the fact that they were witnesses to her adultery…. And according to the law (Deut. 17:7) witnesses were required to cast the first stone.

But then, Jesus returns to bending down to write in the dirt. I can imagine that since Jesus did not continue to challenge them…as He didn’t remain standing, staring them down…instead, He returns to writing in the dirt, leaving them to their own thoughts and consciences.

While they manipulated the situation, Jesus did not. He showed what true justice is. His perfect reply preserved both the Jewish and Roman laws while revealing the evil hearts of her accusers. And that is the crux of this situation for the Scribes and Pharisees. It is the hardness of their hearts. They weren’t looking for true justice but for their own self-righteous desires to shut Jesus up.

To set Him up.

It is not surprising that the ones with the most life experience, the most life lived with times of sin, dropped their stones and walked off first. Until they were all gone. As Jesus began writing on the ground a second time, they had time to think about their own lives and God began to speak to those whose hearts were open to hear his voice.  The living Word, I have no doubt, brought to remembrance things they didn’t speak of out loud.

It is then that He turns to her and addresses her.

Where are your accusers? Have they not condemned you? John 8:10

 And she knows she has been seen. He speaks to her without condemnation, unlike the men that brought her there.

“No, they didn’t condemn me, Lord.”

And neither did He.

 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him. John 3: 17 

For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. John 1: 17

How often do we see people use others for their own ends? With no regard for that person? Not seeing their innate value, like the Pharisees didn’t see hers?

They were self-righteous and judgmental. They had no compassion and no love for her. They saw sin and they wanted it judged to prove a point. Sin does have to be dealt with. But how they dealt with it was wrong…Their motive was wrong. They weren’t concerned about her and her sin, they were only concerned with their desire to trap Jesus.

Jesus didn’t ignore her sin…. No, he addressed it by telling her to sin no more. And she seemed to have repentance as she didn’t argue or make excuses.…even if in our eyes she may have had reason to, such as, if she was seduced into this situation. You see, He would be the one that would pay for her sins, as He has for us.

She most likely did experience earthly consequences of her act of adultery. Which could have included a divorce from her husband and being an outcast in her community.

One thing we can know for certain, is that as He saw her…He sees us. He forgives us. He redeems us. He restores us. He loves us.

She found mercy in Jesus and regained her value. Like He did with Gideon, He saw her for who she could be through faith in Him. She was not her sin. And neither are we.

We are not our sins, or our sicknesses. We are not our hurts or our failures. No. We are not these things.

We. Are. His.

The real thing worth discussing is that of a Gracious God who would come and die and live again so that He could make a way for broken sinners, like us, to be with Him while teaching everyone that redemption has so little to do with us and everything to do with Him. And that is the Gospel.

I want to share a story that was in more than one commentary I read;

James Boice (writes Bible commentaries) tells the story of a man who sat in his office aware of his deep sin but unable to do anything about it. Boice ministered to him by using the illustration of a man walking along a street and splashed by a car in the dark. As he continued, he came into the light of a street lamp and became aware of the stains on his clothing. Finally, the man decided he could not go on, turned around, and went home to put on clean clothes. At that point the young man in Boice’s office responded by saying, “My problem is I don’t have clean clothes.” PRECISELY! Chapter 8 tells about a woman who had no clean clothes…and about Pharisees who also had no clean clothes. She knew she did not, they thought they did. Jesus offered the clean clothes of forgiveness to all of them, and to us as well.

So, who are we going to be? Are we going to see those around us through the eyes of God, with love, grace and mercy? Or are we going to see those around us, through our own faulty eyes, ignoring our own sins, while judging theirs? -Forgetting that we ALL fall short of the glory of God?

I want to ask you….have you given another Christian permission to speak into your life? To both lift you up when you are down and struggling, as well as to hold you accountable when you need it? If not, I ask that you pray for God to show you who that person can be for you. It is invaluable to have another Christian be an accountability partner with you and for you.

Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. James 5:16

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Colossians 3:16

We as Christians, are not perfect. The difference is, we are forgiven. And no matter what anyone tells us to call a person or how to look at them, first…We must call them and one another Loved. Because of the great extent that God has forgiven each of us, we should be the most forgiving, and least judgmental people in the world.

Will we be ones to show others the love of Jesus or be like the Pharisees with pockets full of stones?

I hope and pray that we find our value in the Master’s Hands, as this woman did.

He is where our value comes from. It is not who is in our family. It is not our job, not our sins, what someone else has done to us or any other worldly ‘standard.’

We are who God says we are…we are children of God, we are called by Him, we are redeemed and forgiven. We are chosen, we are free, set-apart and we are conquerors. In Jesus we are a new creation.

The one who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows except the one who receives it.’ Revelation 2: 17