The Woman Caught in Adultery #2
The Scribes and Pharisees came to Jesus with sleight of hand and trickery in an effort to trick Jesus by either destroying His reputation with the Jewish population or having Him transgress the Roman law. The trick they used was ingenious. This was such a well thought out political move that there appeared to be no escape for Jesus no matter what He did. It went like this;
John 8:3-6
3 Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, 4 they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. 5 Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. 6 This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him.
Now the problem is this; and there seems to be no escape for Jesus to get out of this dilemma.
Leviticus 20: 9-19
10 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
Exodus 20:13-16
13 Thou shalt not kill. 14 Thou shalt not commit adultery. 15 Thou shalt not steal. 16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
What the scribes and Pharisees said was true.
The Law of Moses did say that someone caught in adultery should be put to death. They had that right and this woman was caught “in the very act”. And for hundreds of years that law would have been carried out without question. Jesus could have said, “Go ahead and stone her and put her to death because this is the correct punishment under the Jewish Law.
Now this was the trickery part by the scribes and the Pharisees. For you see, the Jews were under captivity by the Romans. Now the Romans were somewhat lenient with the people under their captivity rule, and they allowed the indigenous people to practice their own religions and to keep in place their Priests and religious leaders and even used some of the people to collect Roman taxes and even made some of the Jews governors and rulers over their own people.
But one thing the Jews could not do was place their own laws over the law of the Romans. The Jews did not have the authority to administer capital punishment.
It was because of this Roman law that the Jews were stopped from killing Jesus themselves when He was sent to the cross. The Jewish leaders took Jesus to Pilot in order to have Him condemned to death by the Romans and then persuaded the Romans to execute Him.
If the Jews had been free to kill Jesus themselves He would have been stoned to death for the trumped up and false charge of blaspheme. But to do that would have brought wrath and judgment on them because of the Roman law.
Now Jesus understood this Roman law perfectly. And He knew full well what these Scribes and Pharisees were up to. There appeared to be no way out for Jesus because to follow the Law of Moses would have caused the Roman authorities to arrest Him. He could not violate the Roman law. And yet if He should say to the people to follow the Roman law then He would have lost credibility with the average people in the Jewish community. So what could He do? The scribes and the Pharisees thought they had Him this time and it seemed to be a sure thing for them and they were sure they had Him trapped.
But Jesus had a plan of His own.
How could anyone get out of this trap? Could you have escaped?
Jesus was way too smart to be caught with the trickery of the Scribes and Pharisees.
Jesus understood their sinful hearts and He used this amazingly brilliant plan. The intelligence Jesus used here was remarkable and astonishingly clever. Here’s what He did.
John 8:8-10
But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear. 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.” 8 And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. 10 When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman,
Jesus turned the table on those who were attempting to trick Him.
Now it was their turn to squirm and struggle and try to find a way out for themselves. Suddenly they find themselves in the same predicament they tried to place Jesus in. Now it’s their time to make a decision about what to do. Should they follow the Jewish Law and stone her? If so, the Romans would be after them. Should they imply to the Jewish people that even as Jewish religious leaders they would ignore the Law of Moses? They were lost for an answer to this situation they found themselves in, and so, one by one, they just left.
What a Savior we have in Jesus Christ!
Who else could have handled this situation with the remarkable ability He used here?
We serve a highly intelligent God.
Now for generations our brethren in the church have struggled with this story and these actions by Jesus. Why did Jesus let this woman go?
At first, the temptation is just to explain this by saying Jesus just forgave this woman purely because of His love for mankind. And in His compassion for her He just forgave her of her sin of adultery. But hold on here, what about the Jewish Law? Should we explain this by having Jesus discard the Law and cast it aside?
So another explanation has been included by some to overcome this problem of discarding the Law. It is said that the Jewish Law condemned both the man and the woman to death by stoning. It is further explained that because the Scribes and Pharisees did not bring the man as well, then they were in violation of the Law and therefore had no case against this woman.
And just to add credibility to this explanation, it has also been said that the Scribes and the Pharisees did not bring any witnesses to Jesus to condemn this woman caught in adultery.
But let’s examine each of these claims and see where a close examination leads us. First let’s consider the intelligence of the Scribes and Pharisees. These were highly intelligent men. Their motive was to trap Jesus with a dilemma that was so well planned out that Jesus had no escape no matter what decision He made. These men also knew the Jewish Law. Would it seem reasonable to you, at all, that these men would bring this woman to Jesus in order to trap Him and be so carelessly prepared and planned that they would make obvious mistakes in their own Law in which they were the experts? The Law required witnesses. Do you think these men would not know that? With a well planned trap like they had set for Jesus, would it really sound reasonable that they would forget the witnesses? No, not likely. This woman was caught “in the very act”. Someone caught her. There are your witnesses. Do you really think the Scribes and Pharisees would forget to bring them along?
Also it is said by some who explain these verses about the woman caught in adultery that because the Scribes and Pharisees did not bring along the man who was guilty of adultery then this violated the Jewish Law to the point that they themselves were guilty of sin. This is said to explain why Jesus said to them, “let him who is without sin cast the first stone”.
Now it is true that the Law applied to men and women alike when they were guilty of adultery. There is nothing in the Law, however, that says that a man and a woman have to be stoned at the same time. Consider this scenario; 1. Could this have been a married woman who committed adultery with an unmarried man? 2. Could this have been a married woman who committed adultery with more than one unmarried man or perhaps multiple married men?
How many men would have had to be stoned and at what intervals would they be convicted of this crime. Would it be likely that this woman would have been locked up in a jail while these other men were tried and convicted? I understand that there were no jails involved in enforcing the Jewish Law about adultery. There does not seem to be an alternate sentence.
There was no alternant punishment or lesser sentence under the Jewish Law for someone caught in adultery. Even if the person repented of their sin, the punishment was still there to be carried out.
No, there was no law that required a man and a woman to be stoned together. This woman could have been stoned by herself under the Jewish Law.
But what about the possibility that Jesus just forgave this woman without regard to the Law? Well, Jesus did have the power to forgive sins if He chose to do so. And in this particular case He did tell the woman to go her way and sin no more. By saying these words Jesus acknowledged that what she had done was a sin.
Now if Jesus chose to forgive this woman, there is an example and a precedent in the Bible of another case where someone guilty of adultery was pardoned without being stoned. Consider the case of David and Bathsheba. This was a case of blatant adultery committed by David and the married wife of Uriah. And not only were they guilty of adultery but David committed murder to try to cover it up. How did David and Bathsheba escape being stoned under the Law of Moses? Can someone tell me what Law God used to pardon them and prevent them from having to face the penalty of stoning? And if such a law existed, could it have been used by anyone else? We know that David repented of this sin, but what about others who repented. I would venture to say that almost everyone who was faced with the death of stoning repented before they died. But I know of no law that would overturn the penalty of stoning for adulterers. Yet God forgave David and Bathsheba and prevented them from having to endure the penalty of the Law. I can only conclude that God, through His mercy and kindness and His infinite authority over His creation forgave them out of His own good pleasure. And yes, Jesus had the authority to do the same if He chose to do so. But, this would be just the thing that would help the Scribes and Pharisees close the trap they had set for Jesus.
But, thankfully, Jesus was way too smart to fall into their trap.
Now the end result was this; Jesus, Himself, was not a witness according to the qualifications of the Law and all the witnesses had left. Jesus did not condemn her as a proper witness under the Law and all the proper witnesses were gone and so no one was left to condemn her properly under the Jewish Law.
Jesus’ actions were a masterful and marvelous way for Him to preserve the integrity of the Jewish Law and at the same time start the process of issuing in the “New Covenant” which would give all people a way to have their sins forgiven and would provide grace and mercy to the sinner. And at the same time He did not violate the law of the Romans.
These actions by Jesus turned the tables on the Scribes’ and Pharisees’ diabolical plan design to trap Jesus with a well thought out plan of sleight of hand and trickery. Jesus was way too smart to be trapped with political trickery.
Carl O. Cooper
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