Tenchi
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John 8:3-11
3 The scribes and the Pharisees *brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court,
4 they *said to Him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act.
5 "Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?"
6 They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground.
7 But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."
8 Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court.
10 Straightening up, Jesus said to her, "Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?"
11 She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more."
3 The scribes and the Pharisees *brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court,
4 they *said to Him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act.
5 "Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?"
6 They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground.
7 But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."
8 Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court.
10 Straightening up, Jesus said to her, "Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?"
11 She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more."
A few days ago, I witnessed an exchange between a prostitute and another, older woman in which the prostitute, having admitted to her prostitution to the older gal, attempted to head-off any moral judgment by quoting Jesus. “He who is without sin may cast the first stone.” The older woman immediately assured the prostitute that she was making no moral assessment of the prostitute’s promiscuous means of living and would never dream of doing so.
It frustrated me to watch this exchange between two people obviously seriously ignorant of the context and meaning of the biblical quotation to which the prostitute had appealed. The prostitute was using Christ’s words as a screen for her immorality and the older woman saw his words as a prohibition upon making any moral judgment of the prostitute’s sinful sexuality. Both badly misunderstood Christ’s words and so used them in support of what Christ would have flatly condemned.
In the “don’t-throw-stones” story, a prostitute had been brought to Christ by some of the religious leaders of the day who, citing the law of Moses, told Jesus she must be stoned to death. They hoped, it seemed, to catch him in a trap, accusing him whether he approved stoning the prostitute or not. If he approved, he would have put himself over Roman law and could then be accused of being an enemy of Rome; and if he denied Moses’ law, he would stand in defiance of God and could be accused of rejecting His commands.
When Jesus slipped past the trap of the Pharisees and scribes by making his famous “You who are without sin” remark, he did not imply that the prostitute’s conduct was morally neutral. Instead, he clearly indicated that her prostitution was sin when he said “You who are without sin” to the Pharisees, pointing out that, being guilty of sin themselves, they ought not to condemn the prostitute’s sin. The Pharisees scattered, silently acknowledging their own sinfulness and the hypocrisy of condemning a fellow sinner.
Jesus, though, had something to say to the prostitute before she went away. He assured her that he didn’t condemn her but he also directly and plainly declared her prostitution a sin, commanding her to cease her prostituting. Many today would think that such a command was, in itself, a condemnation of the prostitute. Obviously, Jesus did not think so. What was the distinction he was making, though, between declaring a person’s conduct sin and condemning them for their sin?
In order to judge that a thing is sin, one has to make a moral assessment of it, comparing it to some standard of morality, which, for Christians, is God’s Moral Law (Ten Commandments, etc.). If, however, one’s moral standard is one’s own moral preferences and opinions, if the moral standard is entirely subjective, then all that one can legitimately do when someone else behaves “immorally,” is assert one’s preference and opinion. Such a purely subjective moral standard provides no authoritative ground for “ought” or “should” moral statements, however. It is likely under such a view of morality that the prostitute and the older woman I mentioned at the beginning of this article were both operating, which is why they were so quick to forbid a moral standard on the one hand, and to abandon any such standard on the other.
In sharp contrast, Jesus confronted the prostitute’s sin very directly, able to do so within the context of the objective moral standard set out by God in the Mosaic Law. Against such a moral standard, the prostitute was in blatant contravention and she knew it as well as Jesus did. When Jesus said “sin no more” to the prostitute, he was not asserting a mere subjective preference or opinion, judging and condemning her on entirely personal grounds. No, he was appealing to the highest and most authoritative Moral Law that exists and on the basis of her divergence from it, declaring her sin what it was.
How was it not condemning for Jesus to do this? How could he point directly at her sin and call it sin and not be guilty of condemning her? Well, this question assumes the premise that to identify sin as such is to condemn the sinner, that the two things are synonymous. But they aren’t. To condemn the prostitute, Jesus would have had to put her beyond redemption (and perhaps, then, would have agreed to her being stoned). But his “go and sin no more” revealed that he did not think the woman beyond moral reformation, deserving only of destruction. Though a sinner, for the prostitute there was still hope for change, there was still the opportunity to abandon wickedness and pursue holy living.
But the prostitute must have felt judged by Jesus, ashamed and guilty! That’s not nice! It’s not loving to make others feel this way! Not so. Confronting the prostitute about her sin was the kindest, most loving, thing Jesus could have done. Her sin would destroy her, it would bring corruption and death to her and those participating in her sin. (Ezekiel 18:20; Romans 6:23; James 1:15; Galatians 6:7-8) Good feelings about herself were no more important in the prostitute’s interaction with Jesus than they are when an oncologist tells a person they have cancer. The truth in both cases dissolves good feelings but is absolutely vital, nonetheless.
And so, when the prostitute and the old woman I watched abused Jesus’ words, using them to protect what Jesus called sin, they revealed only that they were profoundly ignorant of what his words meant. “He who is without sin may cast the first stone” is not a defense against identifying sin, but a ward against making sinners irredeemable, worthy only of destruction. The old woman should have told the prostitute, as Jesus did, that her prostitution was sin and that she ought not to do it any longer. It is what Truth and godly love, the love of Christ, demand.
