Tag Archives: Jesus and the Adulterous Woman

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Bridging the Gap Between a Loving God and the Repulsiveness of Sin

Full Of Grace And Truth

Synopsis: How do we bridge the gap between the love of a holy God and the repulsiveness of the sinner’s sin? Grace and truth, that is how. That’s what Jesus perfectly and continually modeled. What we find is that Jesus, as Walter Trobisch said, “accepts us as we are but when he accepts us, we cannot remain as we are.” There it is: grace and truth. Jesus brings our sin to the surface, and when we acknowledge it by full confession and humble repentance, he graciously and forever forgives it. Only grace and truth can do that for sinners. Perhaps that’s why prostitutes, publicans, and other sinners like you and me responded to Jesus so readily. At some level, they recognized their sin. That was why truth wrapped in grace was so appealing in Jesus’ day…and still is today!

Jesus - Full of Grace and Truth

Moments With God // John 1:14

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Not too long after my wife and I had moved into a home we had just purchased, our next-door neighbor’s live-in girlfriend asked me, “what do you do?” I told her that I was a pastor. So she said, “Oh, I’m looking for a church…one that doesn’t get all weird and condemning about sin. What about yours?”

I said, “My church—hey, we accept everybody just the way they are—unless you’re shacking up with someone!”

No—I didn’t say that! But it was an awkward moment for me as I scrambled for a way to minimize the offense of the gospel to a person who was far from God and build a bridge that might lead us at some point into a spiritual conversation. I didn’t need to offer condemnation by my words, in the tone of my voice, or with my body language. I didn’t need to convince her of her sins, she was already dealing with that herself. Besides, it is not my job—it is the work of the Holy Spirit to do that. (John 16:8).

Jesus wouldn’t have done that either. Remember, in this very same book, right after the most famous verse in the entire Bible, John 3:16, Jesus goes on to say, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”(John 3:17)

But let’s keep in mind that neither did Jesus come, as C.S. Lewis pointed out, to tell the world that everything was quite alright! Obviously, the world needed a savior—that’s why Jesus came. People need a savior because sin holds people captive. To keep the bad news about sin and the good news about a Savior from them would be the most hateful thing we could ever do.

So how do we bridge that gap between a loving God and the repulsiveness of the sinner’s sin? Grace and truth, that is how. That is what Jesus perfectly modeled. Take, for instance, his interaction with the adulterous woman in John 8. Picture the scene: This sinful woman is standing in the center of a circle, surrounded by self-righteous religious leaders who want her stoned. Imagine her humiliation, caught in the very act of adultery—a private act now a very public sin. Nothing can hide her shame—and make no mistake, sexual sin is shameful, degrading to the people involved, destructive to the innocent family members it affects, and it is odious to a holy God.

This woman is standing before Jesus, exposed, humiliated, tears dripping to the sand. She has been used by men all of her life, and now she will pay for it with her life. She sees the stones; she knows her guilt. Now, all eyes are on Jesus—what will he do?

After some time, Jesus speaks and says to those who want her executed, “Ok, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” And with that bombshell, one by one, from oldest to youngest, they walked away, leaving only Jesus and this sinful woman face-to-face. What now? Would Jesus give her a good moral tongue lashing? No, he just gently asks, “Where are your accusers? Has no one judged you guilty?”

She replied, “No one, Sir.”

At that, Jesus offered these grace-truth words that would utterly right this sinner’s upside-down life: “Then I don’t either. Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Behind this amazing display of grace and truth, as Walter Trobisch said, what we find is that Jesus “accepts us as we are but when he accepts us, we cannot remain as we are.” Jesus brings our sin to the surface, and when we acknowledge it by confession and repentance, he totally, graciously, and forever forgives it. The adulteress went away forgiven, with a new clean heart and a brand new chance at life. Only grace and truth can do that for sinners.

Perhaps that is why prostitutes, publicans, and other sinners responded to Jesus so readily. At some level, they recognized their sin. That was why forgiveness was so appealing to them…and still is!

What does the world need more than anything right now? What does your sinful next door neighbor so desperately need? The same thing you need: A whole lot of truth and a big dose of grace!

Take A Moment: Spend time today to memorize and meditate on this very important verse from John 1 that likewise reveals the great grace of God: “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12)

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Grace!

Being With Jesus:
John 8:2-5

At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”

In one of my favorite books, What’s So Amazing About Grace, Philip Yancey writes,

“Grace means there’s nothing we can do to make God love us more—no amount of spiritual calisthenics and renunciations, no amount of knowledge gained from seminaries, no amount of crusading on behalf of righteous causes. And grace means there’s nothing we can do to make God love us less—no amount of racism, pride, pornography, adultery or even murder. Grace means that God already loves us as much as an infinite God can possibly love.”

That’s why I love this story of the adulterous woman’s life-transforming encounter with Jesus; it just exudes grace! And it reminds me of how God looks right into what Lewis Smedes called this, “glob of unworthiness that is me and offers to accept me, own me, hold me, affirm me, and never let go of me even if he’s not too impressed with what he has on his hands.”

A glob of unworthiness—that’s me…you, too! And that’s God—loving us, without limit—because of his incredibly great grace! King David, who knew a lot about personal failure and unworthiness, wrote in Psalm 103:8-14,

Grace Greater Than My Sin“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love…he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we’re formed, he remembers that we’re dust.”

That theology of unconditional love, undeserved mercy and unlimited grace is what’s fleshed out here in this story in John 8. And it’s not only the message Jesus wrote with his finger as he stooped to scribble in the dirt, he wrote it with his blood as it dripped to the dirt from the cross. Grace is his life-message! Amazing grace, how sweet the sound! It’s the one thing that’ll touch your core need today; it’s the only thing that’ll transform our lost world.

In 1988, a concert was held in London’s Wembley Stadium, and throughout the day, bands blasted the crowd high on booze and drugs with their ear-splitting music. But for some reason, the promoters scheduled an opera singer as the closing act, Jessye Norman. At the finale, she walked out with no band or singers —unknown to the crowd, which was shouting for more Guns ‘n Roses. Jessye began to sing, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. That saved a wretch like me!” And remark-ably, 70,000 fans got quiet.

By the second verse, “Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved”, they were putty; by the third verse they were digging into their memories to sing along, “and grace will lead me home”. As she sang, “When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun; We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise, than when we first begun” a transcendent reverence had enveloped the stadium.

What on earth wields that kind of power over a beleaguered psalmist, or an adulterous woman, or a stadium full of drug-addled rock-n-rollers? Grace!

Now don’t miss the point of this story: The adulterous woman reminds us that every sinner has a future, but every saint has a past. We’re all born broken, and we become whole only by the mending of grace, God’s glue. And no matter how bad, how unworthy, how disqualified you think you are, you are not beyond the renewing reach of God’s grace. That’s why prostitutes, publicans, and other sinners responded to Jesus so readily—still do. They knew their sin; that’s why forgiveness was so appealing.

And no matter how good, worthy and qualified you think you are, apart from grace, there’s no good in you. In fact, on your best day, apart from grace, Isaiah said your righteousness is as filthy rags. (Isaiah 64:6) That’s why, as C.S. Lewis said, “[Adulterous women] are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God; [it’s] the proud …the self-righteous [that] are in that danger.”

So wherever you fall on the continuum—from super-saint to seedy sinner—just remember: every saint has a past, but every sinner has a future. And grace is there waiting for you! Grace! It’s only by grace that the brokenness we’re born with, and live with, is mended.

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“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
(C.S. Lewis)

 

Getting To Know Jesus: Take a moment today to simply and gratefully reflect on God’s grace.

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Not Guilty

Being With Jesus:
John 8:11 (NLT)

Jesus said to [the adulterous woman], “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”

If I were writing this story instead of John, the scene would have called for Jesus to order down fire from heaven to torch this nasty bunch of Pharisees who had brought the adulterous woman before the Lord. At the very least, I would have had Jesus snatching the poor lady from their grasp and beaming over to Galilee to set her free. That would have made a great story—Oscar-worthy, I’m sure!

But as we have come to expect of Jesus, he does the unexpected. Instead of special effects and edge-of-your-seat drama, he simply stoops over and writes in the sand. Do you ever wonder what he wrote? “Jesus was here”, or perhaps he traced out the Ten Commandments, or better yet, a list of the Pharisees’ secret sins or maybe even the names of their mistresses?

Whatever it was, the religious “KGB” kept pressing until finally he said, “Look, if any of you are without sin, you can be the first one to throw a stone at her.” Then he began to scribble again, and with those words, Jesus lobbed a grenade into their midst that exploded their self-righteousness. Now defenseless, one-by-one the Pharisees, from the oldest to the youngest, walked away, leaving only Jesus and this sinful woman.

Now what would happen to the adulterous woman? Could she expect to get preached at again, some more condemnation, another helping of humiliation and a pile of rejection? That had been the pattern of her life so far. Instead, Jesus gently asks, “Where are your accusers? Has no one judged you guilty?”

She replied, “Sir, they’re gone…they didn’t judge me guilty.”

Then Jesus lobbed another grenade—this one a grace-grenade that utterly exploded this sinful woman’s self-condemnation and turned her sad world right-side up: “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”

So just what was it that Jesus wrote in the sand? I think it is highly likely that he bent over and with his finger, etched these words: “Not guilty!”

A few weeks later, Jesus again wrote those very same words in the sand. This time it was not with his finger, but with blood that dripped from his nail-pierced hands and feet, leaving an indelible stain on the ground at the foot of the cross. This time it wasn’t just meant for an adulterous woman, it was meant for unfaithful, guilty people like you and me:

“Not Guilty. Paid in full. Completely forgiven.”

I don’t know what that grace-explosion does for you, but it makes me want to “go and sin no more.”

“This is the mystery of the riches of divine grace for sinners, for by a wonderful exchange our sins are now not ours but Christ’s, and Christ’s righteousness is not Christ’s, but ours.” (Martin Luther)

Getting To Know Jesus: Have you thanked the Lord lately for his grace—grace that has covered all of your sins! Perhaps now would be a great time to do that. And maybe today would be a great day to extend his grace to another undeserving sinner like you.