Sin No More
Who is Jesus? part 84 – John 7:53 – 8:11
A story I found on the internet. Surce unknown.
The Midnight Pie Heist
Arthur loved Mrs. Gable’s double-crust blackberry pie. He knew it cooled on her kitchen windowsill every Tuesday at three o’clock.
One Tuesday, Arthur gave in to temptation. He tiptoed across the lawn. He reached through the open window. He grabbed the warm pie pan. Purple juice instantly dripped down his elbow.
Suddenly, the kitchen light clicked on.
Mrs. Gable stood in the doorway. She held a heavy wooden rolling pin. Arthur froze like a startled deer. His entire face was covered in purple filling. He dropped the tin with a loud clatter on the floorboards.
Arthur braced himself for a severe scolding. He expected Mrs. Gable to banish him from the neighborhood forever.
Instead, Mrs. Gable sighed deeply. She walked over to the counter. She grabbed a clean kitchen towel. She wiped the purple stain right off Arthur’s nose.
She looked him straight in the eye and smiled.
“I do not condemn you,” she said gently. She handed him the remaining half-slice on a small paper plate. “Go and leave the baking to me.”
Then her smile faded into a firm warning. “But if I catch you trampling my prize petunias to reach the windowsill next week, you are weeding my entire garden until winter.”
Arthur never trampled the petunias again. He also never stole another pie. He learned that true grace does not ignore the wrong action. It offers forgiveness and expects a better choice next time.
53 [[They went each to his own house, 1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask 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.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”]]
John 7:53 – 8:11 ESVUK.
This is the third post on this passage.
The story so far: While Jesus is teaching in the Jerusalem Temple he is rudely interrupted by Scribes and Pharisees bringing a woman who is caught in an act of adultery. They say that the law requires her to be stoned to death.
My first post was about why Jesus would ignore their accusations amd write in the sand.
My second was about Jesus’ suggestion that someone without sin should throw the first stone.
Both these posts were about Jesus’ reaction to the accusers. This one is about Jesus and the woman.
Jesus has a dilema here, There are four groups of people in this story, if you can class a single person as a group, as I’m doing here; one of them is only implied in the text. They are Jesus, the woman caught in adultery, her accusers and the people who were listening to Jesus preach. Only the accusers are mentioned as leaving, so we are left with not Jesus and the womand having a private conversation, as I have heard it described in a sermon, but the people who were listening to Jesus are still around. What Jesus says next is public. What Jesus says next is important. What if he gets a reputation for being soft on sin if he says “your sins are forgiven.”
But I’m digressing for a moment. I want to ask the question of how this woman came to be there. The obvious answer is to say, “She was brought beause she’d been caught committing adultery,” or, “Because the Scribes and Pharisees brought her. But how did they catch her?
Mostly people do not have sex in the open, unless they have been careful to choose a secluded place. People tend to have sex out of sight in a very secluded place or in private in a room. It is not easy to catch a couple in the act of having sex and catch them. Especially if it is adulterous, which you wouldn’t want people to know about and make sure you are not caught and have a cover story.
Crime drama
I’m moving away from Biblical critique here and into the realm of the detective novel. I can do this because this is not a sermon, it is a blog post on my own site. Most crime stories are murder mysteries, court procedral is another main form. I watch crime dramas on TV and have wondered why great detectives seem to work in places where the crime rate is so high. If they are so good shouldn’t it be low? Oxford must be the unsafest place in Britain, if you look at the number of fictional murders that took place in “Inspector Morse” and its offshoot series “Lewis” and “Endeavour,” I have visited Oxford, and it felt as safe as anywhere else in the UK, and safer than some. But that’s crime drama, saying it reflects real life is like thinking Star Trek is a documentory.
But crime drame is good from a Christian perspective. In them, when something is wrong, the great detective comes along and puts the wrong right. It aligns with Judeo-Christian principles of the commandments, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet and you shall comit adultery. If I were asked what sorts of thinggs fit into Pauls list in Philippians 4, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” I’d put crime dramas in there. But I would say that, wouldn’t I? My review of the crime drama Patience is my most read post in the last year.
So how did this woman get caught in adultery? If I use my little grey cells like a fictional detective I could suspect there was some sort of honey trap. The law said that both of the adulterous couple should be brought to be stoned. It is not unreasonable to suspect that the man was part of a set up. Where was he? To me this looks like a plan to embarras Jesus infront of the people. It could still work, Jesus, the woman and those listening were still there.
Condemnation
What Jesus could have said was, “Your sins are forgiven.” He’d said it before, to a parylised man on a bed who had been let down through a hole in a roof. Both times no one had asked for forgiveness. The woman had not tried to plead her innocence either, she has definitely done whay she was accuused of. If Jesus had mentioned her guilt it would have been bad for him, what would those who welcomed him as the friend of publicans and sinners have thought. If he had let her go free then he would have been condemned for being soft on sin. That’s what the Scribes and Pharisees had set up, a lose, lose situation. What Jesus did do is talk about condemnation.
“Jesus stood up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?'” (John 8:10).
We’ve heard about Jesus and condemnation before. In John 3:17 we read, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” We heard the words, now we see it in action. Jesus is showing what it means not to condemn. The woman has sinned and broken one of the commandments, not just one of the commandments. Jesus has spoken strongly the lust that leads to adultery, saying, “27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Jesus was not soft on sin, and adultery in particular. He tells the woman, “I do not condemn you,” Jesus, who will judge the word at the end of the age, does not condemn. If we are to live like Jesus we are not to condemn anyone for anything, judging people is Jesus’ job, and here we have an example of how he will do it.
The Apostle Paul put it this way, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:1-2).
Sin no more
But the sin is still there, and we can condemn ourselves by living in it. What Jesus adds to this sinful woman is his message to all who are caught in sin, “Go, and from now on sin no more.” This is the second time Jesus has said “sin no more” in John’s account of his life. The first was to the man healed at the pool of Bethesda, a pagan place. Jesus said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”
Ask yourself this question, “Name one thing you wanted to do but didn’t because you knew it was a sin. Don’t say you didn’t rob a bank. Most people, even the worst sinners, don’t do that. Name a sin you are actually able to do and likely to commit then didn’t do it.”
If the only sins you are avoiding are things you wouldn’t have done even if you didn’t claim to be a Christian, then like me Christ has not made a lot of difference. Actually changing our behavior and not indulging in the sins we really want to do is a rare thing. It’s a continual struggle.
Jesus is asking you to change your lifestyle, Sin no more is an impossible task. That’s why John, in his first letter, says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John1:8-9) and, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” (1 John 2:1).
Jesus was asking the man at the Bethesda pool and the woman caught in adultery to change not just what they do but their entire lifestyle, their way of acting, their way of thinking, the rules they lived by. Ask yourself the question again, “Name one thing you wanted to do but didn’t because you knew it was a sin.” Maybe Jesus is asking you to do the same.
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