John 8:12-15 - I am the light

8:12

Remember that the previous section was probably an incident that occurred at some other point in Jesus’ ministry. Another feature of the Feast of Tabernacles was candle lighting ceremonies each night, so again Jesus’ claiming to be the light of the world was particularly apposite. Furthermore there are passages in Isaiah that are relevant. Is 42:6 speaks of God’s servant become a light for the Gentiles, tying in with Jesus saying He is the light of the world. Is 49:6 says a similar thing and speaks of God’s salvation going to the ends of the earth. Finally Is 51:4 talks of God’s justice becoming a light to the nations. Right back to the promise to Abraham (Gen 12:2,3) it was always God’s plan that His salvation would go to the nations. The nation of Israel tended to forget this, but the prophets frequently remind them of this. Jesus is the fulfilment of this plan. If we follow Jesus we will not walk in darkness. We need to hold on to this promise. The world may seek to put us in darkness, circumstances may seem to put us in darkness, but God is the One who said “let there be light”, and He is the source of light. In Revelation 21:23 tells us that the new Jerusalem will have no need of the sun for the glory of the Lord will be our light. Jesus is the source of true light.

8:13,14

True to form the Pharisees were not happy. They sought to argue against Jesus from the Law, for someone could not be their own witness. Jesus’ response is that His testimony is indeed valid for He is God. The Pharisees’ reasoning was based on ignorance, for they did not know where Jesus came from, nor where He was going. Jesus did know these things. If we consider Jesus as just a man we will never understand Him and any conclusions we reach will be worthless and wrong.

8:15

The Pharisees were basing their judgement on pure human reasoning, this was a mistake and meant that they could not see the truth. Now this most definitely does not mean that we should not use human reasoning, but it is not all that we need. We see the same problem arising in the scientific arena. Now science is good, and reveals many useful things. However, a purely materialistic approach will never reveal the whole truth, and indeed will lead to error. We do not live in a closed system. The universe exists, and we exist, because God created us, and God also interacts with the world.

John 8:7-11 - Leave your life of sin

8:7,8

The teachers of the Law persisted with their questioning, so eventually Jesus says His famous words “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. Then He resumed His doodling in the sand. Now the “without sin” is very general. Some think He may have been hinting that the accusers were guilty of adultery. Given the size of the crowd, no doubt some of them were, but surely not all of them. If they had heard the sermon on the mount and Jesus’ words on committing adultery in our hearts then this could include all of them, but this would be crediting the crowd with an unreasonable degree of spiritual maturity. It is best to take these words as referring to sin in general.

These words, along with Jesus words on not judging others (Matt 7:1) are greatly misinterpreted, misused and abused. Stephen Fry in his viral interview on RTE mentioned these words, saying they were nonsense because it means the courts could not work. It is Stephen Fry’s (lack of) interpretation that is nonsense. Then there are multitudes of Christians and atheists who use Matt 7:1 as an excuse for condoning sin.

What Jesus is doing is getting the people to look at their own lives. The teachers of the Law were fixated with finding some way of trapping Jesus, they thought this was the most important thing in life and if they succeeded then their problems would be over. What they really needed to do was to admit the sin in their own lives, then they could turn to Jesus and receive the true solution to the real problem. The same applies to all of us. It is all too easy to focus on someone else's sin, when our first concern should be dealing with our own sin. Matt 7:3-5 is the lesson that Jesus is teaching, which interestingly comes after 7:1.

8:9-11

The people then drifted away, the older ones first. The older ones had lived longer and knew more of their own failings, younger people tend to be more full of themselves. Notice how Jesus words had authority. If one of the Pharisees had said this then many would have quickly been able to find fault with the Pharisee and then reject his words. They could not do this with Jesus.

Jesus then turns to the woman and tells her that He does not condemn her either, and, crucially, warns her to leave her life of sin. This is how God deals with sin. He is willing to forgive the sin of those who come to Him (though the woman here was brought to Him), but He does not condone our sin. So many people use Jesus’ forgiveness as an excuse for continuing sinning or not taking it seriously. Sin is so serious that the only solution was for Jesus to go to the cross and take upon Himself the judgement that should have been ours.

John 8:4-6 - Stoning of adulterers?

8:4-6

They brought her before Jesus and questioned Him on the matter. They were doing this not because they wanted to learn something, but because they wanted to trap Him. The Law said one thing, but the state of the times meant that they could not actually do this, and so whatever Jesus said (or so they thought) would get Him in trouble.

As noted in the comments on verse 3, the teachers of the Law were actually only quoting half the Law, for it required the stoning of the man as well.

Now leaving aside the immediate situation, what are we to make of the Law’s requirement for stoning of adulterers? Let me say a little about this and our approach to the apparently “harsh” aspects of the Law. First, the Law is actually amazingly liberal in many of its social and legal requirements, treating all as equal before the Law, its concern for the poor, for immigrants and for slaves. And its financial system (Sabbaths and Jubilee years) stand in stark contrast to our current world system. The Law was certainly liberal in terms of the time it was given in, and actually is much more liberal than much of what we see in the world today.

Even so, there are parts, like stoning of adulterers, that we recoil from. We should remember that the Law was not the ultimate state. This was the mistake the Jews made, they saw it as the destination, rather than a stopping place along the way (Gal 3:1-4:8). It is perhaps helpful to see the Law as a picture of what things will be like in God’s kingdom. Now this does not mean that in God’s kingdom adulterers will be stoned, it does mean that in God’s kingdom there won’t be any adulterers. There won’t be any sin at all, we will all have been transformed (1 Cor 15:52).

We should bear in mind that adultery is definitely sin and is destructive to individuals and to society.

Jesus then wrote in the sand. Now we don’t know what He wrote, or if He was just doodling. Some see an allusion to the writing of the ten commandments. Or it could be just a demonstration that He was not going to get involved in the matter.

John 8:1-3 - Adultery

8:1,2

Most of the people returned to their own homes, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives, presumably to pray. As it is placed in John this happened after the previous discourse, but as we have seen we cannot actually be sure when this incident occurred.

The next day He went to the temple, sat down and began to teach them. Sitting down was the normal position in those days for teaching. It is worth noting how important teaching is in Jesus’ ministry. John puts great emphasis on it, but the same point comes out in other gospels. For instance in Mark’s gospel look at 1:21, 1:38, 3:14 and 6:30. We need to learn, that is why God teaches. If you look in the Psalms where David is crying out to God, very often his prayer is “Lord teach me your ways”, eg Psalm 25:4,5; Psalm 86:11. When we are in trouble the Lord’s answer will often be to teach us. We always want the circumstances to change, but often it is us that need to change. And when we do change, when we start thinking and acting differently, in a more Christlike manner, we find that the way through becomes clear.

8:3

The teachers of the Law brought in the woman caught in adultery. This is the only place in John where the term “teachers of the Law” is used, though it is used several times in the synoptic gospels. This lends further support to the idea that this was not originally part of John’s gospel.

Adultery was (and is!) a sin. Under the Law the penalty was death (Lev 20:10; Deut 22:22). This raises some questions. One is how they managed to catch her in the act? More seriously is where is the man? It takes two to commit adultery yet only the woman is brought forward here. So in their supposed zeal for the Law the teachers of the Law were themselves neglecting half of the Law! We should not be surprised at this. There are various groups today that supposedly promote equality or tolerance, but it is always a highly uneven equality, and they are usually the most intolerant people on earth.

John 7:50-53 - The woman caught in adultery?

7:50-52

Nicodemus, who we met in chapter 3, spoke up. He did not directly defend Jesus but did seek to get Him a fairer hearing. The Law required that an accused person be given the opportunity to defend himself, but the religious leaders were denying Jesus even this. The Pharisees had no time for this, they had condemned Jesus and that was that. When people oppose God they do not act rationally, so we should not be surprised when opponents act unfairly or illogically.

7:53

This next incident is one of the most well known. It is also highly likely that it was not part of John’s gospel. In most versions you will see a note at 7:53, and or a footnote, saying something like “the earliest manuscripts do not include 7:53-8:11”. I think the first manuscript of John to include this come from the late fourth or fifth century. Some manuscript add the passage after John 7:36 or 21:25, some even add it after Luke 21:38. So what are we to make of this? Some  say they would not preach on this passage. I think this is going a little far. The character of Jesus presented in this incident is entirely consistent with everything else we know about Him. Moreover, the story rings true. So it may well be that it records a genuine incident in Jesus’ life, it is just that it wasn’t originally in John’s gospel. It is also important to look at it as the incident is misrepresented by many (usually opponents of Christianity) and is particularly relevant in the light of current debates on sexual morality.

John 7:45-49 - No man ever spoke like this man

7:45,46

The Chief Priests and Pharisees had evidently sent the officers (including guards and religious officials) and were rather annoyed that they had not actually arrested Jesus. The command was easy to give from afar, but quite difficult to fulfil in practice. For when the officers had met Jesus they had been amazed at Him. He was no ordinary man. In their case it was the way that He spoke that had impacted them. Note that miracles are not always the best way to impress people, and their effect can be quite transitory. The lasting miracle is a change of heart. Jesus had spoken quite differently from anyone else. Elsewhere it is noted that He spoke with authority (Matt 7:29). Remember they were hearing the very words of God! Imagine what it will be like when Jesus returns and everyone hears His voice. Every protesting tongue will be silenced on that day.

7:47-49

The Pharisees were not impressed, accusing the officials of being deceived. They then try to draw them back to look at the authority of the Pharisees, such as it was. This was the crux of the issue. The religious leaders were opposed to Jesus and failed to see who He was because they were more concerned with protecting their own position. Pride and sin blind us to the truth. They also spoke disparagingly of the crowds. The Pharisees had a very high opinion of themselves, and an equally low opinion of the common people, often referring to them as “people of the land”. They were loathe to mix with the common people for fear of being made unclean. Of course, the truth was that the Pharisees themselves did not really know the Law and were themselves unclean.

John 7:39-44 - A difference of opinion

7:39

This verse then clarifies the point that John was making. Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit. So we see the repeated trinitarian view expressed in John. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are always working together. If we believe in Jesus then we will receive the Spirit, He is not an optional extra. In fact in one sense He is the whole point of it. In Galatians 3 Paul makes great play of the Galatians receiving the Spirit. The disciples had not yet received the Spirit because Jesus had not yet been glorified. Ie Jesus had not yet gone to the cross.

7:40-44

Again John highlights the diversity of views among the people. Some thought he was the prophet. This is a reference back to Deuteronomy 18:15 where Moses says that God would raise up a prophet like Moses. Incidentally, Muslims claim that this verse predicts the coming of Mohammed (it doesn’t!). Others said he is the Christ. So it seems that there was confusion in their minds over whether the Prophet and the Messiah are the same or different. Then some got all theological about it saying that the Messiah could not come from Galilee. Micah 5:2 says the Messiah will come from Bethlehem, which of course is where Jesus was born. This is an illustration of how our arguments can be wrong. The logic of their argument was fine, but a presupposition was totally wrong.

So the people were divided, some supporting Jesus, or at least wondering favourably about Him, others wanting to arrest Him. As it was, no one laid hands on Him, for His time had not yet come. It is normal for the world to be confused and divided over who Jesus is. There are often surveys on what the public think about religious matters, eg do people believe in God? Now for giving insight into what people are thinking these surveys can be useful, but they are completely worthless in ascertaining what the truth is. God’s existence does not depend upon an opinion poll!