stoning

November 13, 2025 –  Stephen, Stoning, and Getting What You Deserve— Acts # 20

David Chupp Acts , , , , ,

November 13, 2025 –  Stephen, Stoning, and Getting What You Deserve— Acts # 20
Acts 7:54 – 8;1

Acts 7:54-60   Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

Imagine if you were one of the over 5000 Jewish followers of Jesus on this day.   One of your leaders has just been stoned to death by the people in charge of the Jewish Religion, your religion.  All Jesus-followers at this time were Jewish, and they did not think they had stopped being Jewish when they followed the apostles and Jesus.  You see, all their life they had been raised by their Jewish parents, their Jewish community at synagogue, and the leaders of the Jewish religion, the priests, scribes, and Pharisees, to pray every day for the Messiah that would one day come.  So if you are a Jesus follower on this day, you have no reason to believe you have stopped being Jewish.  In fact, that Jewish prayer you prayed every day, for the Jewish Messiah to come, has come true, just as the Jewish prophets foretold.   You are a Jew who believes your Messiah has come.

And the people in charge of your religion, the ones in charge of the temple where you worship, and the ones who hold the power to excommunicate you from the religion or even kill you, these people just killed one of the most helpful, kind, Spirit-filled men you have ever known.  And the charge against him, blasphemy, was for saying the same things you were speaking to a friend yesterday.  How would you feel?  Would you be wondering if they were coming for you next?  

Acts 7:58   Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him.

You have heard Bible stories about stoning and have probably at one time read the rules about stoning in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, but since many people fall asleep reading Leviticus and since we don’t know the culture well, let’s review a little about stoning.

Stoning was a common form of punishment in ancient times.  It is found in the law codes of several cultures.  In the Old Testament, sins punishable by stoning are in two categories:

  1. Those that deal with man’s relationship to God.   This includes those who tempt others to engage in idolatry (Deuteronomy 13:7,11), those who participate in idolatry themselves (Deuteronomy 17:5), those who use God’s name in a curse (Leviticus 24:16), those who offer their children to Molech (Leviticus 20:2), people who serve as mediums or necromancers (Leviticus 20:27) and a special case of a man who gathered wood on a Sabbath (Numbers 15:32-36).
  2. Social Crimes.   It is the fate prescribed for the wayward and defiant son (Deut 21:18-21), whose actions are accounted a capital offence to emphasise the gravity of disrespect for parents.   This sounds incredibly harsh to us, but understand the context.  First, it was not uncommon at all in these times for a father to kill his son for disobedience. Many cultures saw this as a fitting punishment, either death or being sold into slavery. But Biblical law is more restrictive and deprives the father of his authority to exert capital punishment on his own.  It is for the community elders to decide.  Secondly, in Jewish history, this was never done.  The Talmud states, “It never happened and it never will happen.”  Like many of our law codes today, there are specific maximum punishments on the books that are never used.  In Old Testament times, extreme cases of rebellious sons usually resulted in disinheritance.  The punishment of stoning was carried out in some cases of adultery, and there are several cases discussed in the Old Testament (and one in the New Testament).   Again, this maximum punishment was not always carried out, and apparently, the spouse had the right to insist on a lesser sentence.

Stoning took place outside the camp or city.  

Leviticus 24:13-14   Then Yehovah spoke to Moses, saying, “Bring out of the camp the one who cursed, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him.”

This was to ensure that the blood of the guilty would not contaminate the camp or city.  Remember that contact with a dead body made a person ritually unclean for seven days. 

Numbers 19:14-16   This is the law when someone dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent shall be unclean seven days. And every open vessel that has no cover fastened on it is unclean. Whoever in the open field touches someone who was killed with a sword or who died naturally, or touches a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.

Remember that Jesus was crucified and Stephen was stoned just outside the city walls.  (The exception to this was adultery.  If a woman was convicted of the crime of not being a virgin when she married, she was to be stoned at the door of her father’s house, implying parental responsibility for their child’s sexual behavior.)

Initially, stoning was done by throwing stones at the guilty person until they were dead.  By New Testament times, stoning was frequently done by pushing the guilty off a roof or a cliff.   If they did not die from the fall, a large rock was placed on their chest to make breathing difficult.  If they survived that, then they would cast stones.  Note this quote from the Mishna, the first written collection of the Jewish oral law that had been passed down for centuries.

“The elevation of the stoning grounds was twice the height of a man. One of the witnesses to the crime pushes him by his hips [so that he falls on his side]. If he falls onto his chest, he is turned onto his hips. If he dies [from the fall], the court has fulfilled its obligation. If he is still alive, the second witness takes a stone and places it on his chest. If the condemned man dies, the court has fulfilled its obligation.  If he is not dead, he is stoned by all of Israel…”

This quote from the Mishna (Sanhedrin 45) was written after 200 AD, but was considered the practice in the first century as well. The rabbis noted that the change in method was to fulfil Leviticus 19:18 (“Love your neighbor as yourself”) as seen in this quotation from Sanhedrin 45a: “Love your fellow as yourself, by choosing for him a better way to die.”  

This method of stoning is seen when the leaders of the synagogue in Nazareth decided that Jesus had committed blasphemy and needed to be killed. 

Luke 4:29   And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff.

They intended to stone Jesus in the usual manner of the day, by pushing him off the cliff.  But God did not allow it that day.

Stoning was a form of public execution, not just observed by the public but carried out by it.  

Leviticus 20:2   The people of the land shall stone him with stones.

The community was responsible for carrying out the punishment.  Again, this may seem odd to us because our culture does not operate under the same assumption of community guilt as the culture of the Bible (though it should).   According to scripture, the community bears some of the guilt of any member who sins.  If a family member sinned, it brought guilt and shame on the family.  If a member of their community or nation sinned, this too brought guilt and shame on every member.   By participating in the stoning, they removed the guilt the lawbreaker had brought on the community.

And when the stoning was the sentence of a court hearing, the witnesses in the hearing were to throw the first stone.

Deuteronomy 17:7   The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

The Scripture is clear that there must be two or three witnesses, and that God takes the idea of false witness very seriously.  It is one of the ten commandments.

Exodus 20:16.  You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

By requiring the witnesses to throw the first stone, the witnesses are directly responsible for the execution, so if their testimony was false, then they are guilty of murder.   

Knowing this information about stoning gives us some insight into the story in John 8 of Jesus and the adulterous woman. 

John 8:2-7   Early in the morning, Jesus came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 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. 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.”

If you pictured the crowd of accusers picking up stones and then dropping them as they walked away, then know it didn’t happen that way.  They would not have stoned her there in the city, much less in the most holy place, the Temple.  We are told that this woman was caught in the act.  It is somewhat odd that she was caught in the act, but only the woman was brought to Jesus as the guilty party.  And they misquote the Scripture specifying the woman should be stoned when both of the scriptures that mention this (Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22)  refer to both the man and the woman (and do not specify stoning). 

Then Jesus said, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 

 First, understand that the Greek word for ‘throw a stone at her’ (“ballo”) can also be translated as ‘put or place a stone on her.’  Any of those 3 English words can be used.  The translator has to choose which English word to use based on the context.  This is the same Greek word, translated as “put” in this verse in James:

James 3:3   If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well.

I am glad our translators chose ‘put’ in this verse in James instead of ‘throw’.  It would take perfect aim and timing to throw a bit into a horse’s mouth, and I do not recommend trying this.  But the original English translators of the Bible were unaware of the change in method for stoning when they translated, so they chose to use “throw” instead of “put” or “place”.  But knowing what we know now, we see that what Jesus said is indeed consistent with the practice of the day, placing stones on the guilty party if the guilty party did not die from the fall. 

Secondly, when Jesus said, “Let him who is without sin place the first stone,” he is not asking who in the crowd is perfect and without sin (as I have usually heard it interpreted).  He is referring to the specific command in Deuteronomy 17 that the witnesses are to be the first to throw (or place) stones.  He is reminding these people who have come forward as ‘witnesses’ to this woman’s sin that it is a sin to be a false witness, and they had better be willing to fulfill their responsibility to begin the sentence if, indeed, they are without the sin of false testimony.   

Suddenly, no one is willing to be a ‘witness’ to this adultery, as apparently, no one is willing to commit the sin of false witness and murder.  There is no one left to condemn her.

But the false witnesses in our story of Stephen in Acts 7 were indeed willing to take on that sin.  How would you feel if this were your friend that people had lied about in court to have him killed?  What if you were Stephen’s mother or father?  How would you respond?  And these convicting him are members of their synagogues, and church leaders and priests.  How could God allow this?  They all deserve death.

Would you be angry?  Would you want to take revenge on the person who did this to your friend?  Would you pray and ask God to punish them severely for this horrible sin?  Would you want God to open up a hole in the earth and swallow them right away?  There may have been people in Stephen’s day who prayed that very prayer, who wanted to take vengeance into their own hands.  But how did Stephen respond?

Acts 7:59-60  And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.”

His dying words were, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”  What a Jesus-like attitude to have.  Jesus said the same thing from the cross.  He, too, was condemned by false witnesses and the court of the priests.  Those who were responsible for maintaining the integrity of religious practice, but committed the worst possible evil.  

We know the names of some who were in the court that convicted Stephen.  Annas and Ciaphas were there for sure.  But there is one other person who had a part in deciding Stephen’s fate, who you know very well.  Later on in this person’s life, he confesses to this sin.  He admits that he voted to put them to death.  And we know without a doubt that he was there for Stephen’s trial. He says this:

Acts 26:9-10   I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.

“I cast my vote against them.”  There is no other place to cast a vote like this except in the Sanhedrin, the court that tried and convicted Stephen.  The person speaking here is the apostle Paul.  He admits he voted in the court to have Stephen and others killed.  He admits the sins he committed.

And the Scripture specifically records his presence there.  

Acts 7:58-60  Then they cast Stephen out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

Though oddly, when chapter divisions were added to the Bible in the 13th century, Mr Langton separated the last sentence of this story of Stephen into a different chapter. (I leave it to you to contemplate his motive.)  So the final sentence of this story is in chapter 8:

Acts 8:1   And Saul approved of his execution.

And Saul approved of his execution.  In Greek, “approved” or “agreed to.”  This young rabbi, trained by the most respected rabbi of his day, was in the council voting to have this innocent man stoned to death.  Now, what is the penalty for condemning an innocent man?  What should God do with these men?  What do they deserve?  What does Saul deserve?

But God did not give them what they deserved.  There are plenty of times when God does give people what they deserve throughout the Old Testament, and we discussed the story of Ananias and Sapphira just a few weeks ago, who received their punishment immediately.  How about these people who sent Jesus to the Romans for crucifixion and those who sent this innocent man, Stephen, to his death?  I can’t help but wonder whether the reason they didn’t get what they deserved is that one of God’s dear children prayed that they wouldn’t.  

Jesus:  “Father, forgive them for they really don’t understand what they are doing”
Stephen: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”  

I can’t speak for the outcome of all of these men who voted to kill Jesus or Stephen.  But I can talk about one of them.  God did not hold the young man Saul’s sin that day against him.  God did not give Saul what he deserved.  In fact, Jesus makes a very dramatic effort to reveal himself to this very man, appearing to him on the Damascus road.  Do you think the prayer of Stephen asking God to forgive those who condemned him (including Saul) had anything to do with God’s miraculous intervention with Saul?

There is an interesting comment Jesus makes to the disciples on the day of his resurrection.  They are gathered together.

John 20:22-23.  And when Jesus had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

We don’t have time now to discuss these verses thoroughly.  Perhaps another day.  But know that different denominations interpret this differently.  The Catholic Church uses this passage as Biblical evidence for the rite of confession.  They maintain that Jesus is giving his apostles the ability to choose which sins are forgiven and which are not, and that this is passed on through apostolic succession to priests.  (The priests don’t forgive the sin, but they say he has the power to convey or confer the forgiveness of God.)   Some Protestant denominations explain that these verses do not give church leaders this power, but are saying that we can pass on the knowledge of the path to salvation so that men can become saved through Jesus and thus receive forgiveness of sins.  

Let me add my interpretation. I believe in prayer. I believe prayer matters.  I see examples in the Bible of people praying and God listening and responding to their prayers.  And I think one way God answered that prayer that Stephen prays to forgive his accusers was to meet Saul on the Damascus Road.   I believe an answer to Stephen’s prayer is the apostle Paul.  Because God sought out Saul, who deserved to die right then and there, the gospel spread throughout much of the world, and we have much of the New Testament.  And this knowledge demands that I pray earnestly for God to forgive others, especially those who have harmed me.

Regardless of how you interpret these verses, know that we have a responsibility to forgive sin, even the sins of those who are our enemies, those who persecute us. 

Matthew 5:44:  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
Luke 6:28   Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
Matthew 6:14-15  For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Do you have an enemy?  Has someone done you wrong?  Has someone treated you so poorly that you want God to punish them?  Then pray for his forgiveness.  Pray that he will seek the forgiveness of Jesus.  In Paul’s second letter to Timothy, he says this:

2 Timothy 2:25-26   Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.

What if Stephen had not prayed for Saul’s forgiveness?   What if, instead, he prayed for Saul to be given what he deserved?   Would it have changed the outcome?

I can’t pray for people to get what they deserve, because God certainly didn’t give me what I deserved.  I was a sinner, lost and without hope.  I deserved death and eternal separation from God.  I deserved hell.  But grace.  God’s grace did not give me what I deserved, but what I needed.  Love and mercy and grace.  Forgiveness of sins and God’s Holy Spirit were placed within me.   I thank God every day that Saul didn’t get what he deserved.  Then we wouldn’t have these rich letters of scripture he wrote.  I thank god every day that I didn’t get what I deserved.   And I then have no choice but to pray to God that, even for those who have treated me harshly, God will grant them repentance. 

October 13, 27 A.D.  –  The “trial” of the adulterous woman —   The Year of the Lord’s Favor #57

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , , ,

Week 35 ———  The Woman Caught in Adultery
John 8:1-11

John 7:53-8:11     [[They went each to his own house, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning, he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now, in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?”  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.  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.”   And once more, he bent down and wrote on the ground.   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.   Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”   She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”]]

This story likely happened during the Feast of Tabernacles as Jesus would not have hung around Jerusalem after his required attendance at the feast (as John noted in 7:1).  At the end of the feast, he sends out the 70 two-by-two on a mission for 2 months.  During that time (as with the previous time the 12 were sent out), we have no detailed information on Jesus’ actions or whereabouts.  So, for the next two months, we will take the time to cover some of Jesus’ teachings and then pick up the timeline of Jesus’ ministry when the 70 return in mid-December.   

(Some Bibles have this passage bracketed with a note that the story is not included in some earlier manuscripts.  For a brief discussion of the textual criticism and when this story occurred, see the footnote.)1

Now, before we can discuss this passage, we need to understand the context.  First of all, did the Jews of Jesus’ day stone people who committed adultery?  So, let’s discuss “Law and Order” in the Bible.  While no one would want to sit and read a catalog of laws (currently, the US Code is 54 volumes and 60,000 pages), people love to watch dramas about law and order.  The television series of that name began 34 years ago, and now there are seven series and over 1000 episodes.  

“Law and Order” has about 8 million viewers every episode.  Now, I bet the number of people who sit down and read the 54-volume US code is zero. Every year, about the beginning of February, I hear people doing the read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year plan moan and complain because they got to Leviticus.    It’s a long list of laws (or measurements for building a tabernacle).  But if you step back and view the Bible as a whole, the laws are interspersed with stories of people in that situation.  The Bible is not a law book.  It is a narrative.  So you get examples of laws, and then you get a section of stories about how people don’t follow the laws.  

People like stories. According to TV ratings, people like drama, and our passage today is a dramatic story from the Bible. So, let’s examine the law in the scriptures and how it was prosecuted.

Back to our question: did the Jews of Jesus’ day stone people who committed adultery?  Well, you might say that’s an easy question.  It is in the Bible twice (Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22).  

Leviticus 20:10   “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

But the question was, “Did the Jews of Jesus’ day actually stone people who committed adultery?”   Just because the law is on the books does not mean it is enforced.  We certainly have laws on books that are never prosecuted.

If you are judging their culture of 3000 years ago by our US cultural standards, the death penalty seems like a harsh sentence.   (In the Bible, death was the prescribed punishment for homicide, striking one’s parents, kidnapping, cursing one’s parents, witchcraft and divination, bestiality, worshiping other gods, violating the Sabbath, blasphemy, child sacrifice, adultery, incest, among others.)  Does that seem like a harsh system to you?  The famous Biblical phrase often stated as harsh is “Eye for Eye, Tooth for Tooth.”  That is also found twice in the Bible (Exodus 21:22-25 and Leviticus 24:19-20).

Exodus 21:22-25   “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine.  But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”

The idea of “eye for eye” is to restrict punishment and retribution.   It is meant to prevent retaliation from escalating.  You poked me in the eye, so I will kill you.  You caused the death of my lamb, so I have the right to kill your whole herd or kill your daughter.  We see this in the constant conflict in the Middle East.  One nation attacks, and you expect the other nation to respond with a similar measured response.  “Eye for eye” was seen as the opposite of harsh in the day it was written, when many cultures had extremely severe punishments for any crimes.

There is a term for severe, cruel, or harsh punishments:  Draconian.  It is named after Draco, a lawyer of ancient Athens, around 621 BC.   It is synonymous with barbaric, ruthless, cruel, and authoritarian punishments. In an attempt to standardize punishments, Draco established a system where all crimes, no matter how small, were punishable by death.  If you steal an apple, your sentence is the death penalty.  If you fail to pay taxes, you get the death penalty.   There are still places in the world that we might say have Draconian punishments.  Since we are speaking about adultery, 11 countries can still impose the death penalty for adultery:  Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.  

But back to Israel in Jesus’ day. Did the Jews of Jesus’ day stone people who committed adultery?  The answer is no.  The death penalty was only very rarely used by the Jewish court in the hundreds of years before Jesus.  The Mishna records rabbis discussing the death penalty, and they note that a Sanhedrin (their supreme court) that executes one person in 70 years is barbaric.2   It was highly unusual for a Jewish court to sentence someone to death in Israel in the 200 years before Jesus.  And in Jesus’ day, it was even more rare.  

However, the Roman Government freely used the death penalty for non-citizens.  Now, when Rome took over Israel, the Jews could have a trial and sentence someone but then had to submit to Rome’s authority to carry out the death penalty.   By 30 AD, just a few years after Jesus’ crucifixion, the Sanhedrin completely abolished the death penalty.    That gives us even more understanding of how unusual it was for the Jewish court to sentence Jesus to death for blasphemy.  It was just never done.  His was an extremely rare exception.  (Note that Stephen’s stoning happened with no trial.  It was an act of mob violence, albeit under the approval of a prominent rabbi, Paul.)

With all this background context, let’s look at the scripture.

John 8:4-6    “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now, in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?”  This they said, to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.

So Jesus is sitting down, teaching in the Temple courtyard, and people are gathered around him.  The scribes and Pharisees come marching in with a woman in tow, putting her in the middle of the listening crowd.  John tells us this is a test.  This is certainly not a trial. Only the council of the Sanhedrin can put this woman on trial.  They ask Jesus’ opinion before those listening to him, hoping to catch him saying something they can arrest him for.

If Jesus says, “She should be stoned,”  then people will turn against him.   Again, capital punishment by the Jews is unheard of at this point.  They would, like us, view this as incredibly harsh.  The crowd will turn on Jesus, just like if you posted the same thing on Facebook today. If Jesus says she should not be stoned, then they will say, “See, he does not follow the law.”  They think they have him trapped.

John 8:6-7  “Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.  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.”

“Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”  This comment is misunderstood because we don’t know the first two-thirds of the Bible, which gives instructions for how to stone someone.

Deuteronomy 17:7   The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

The person who witnessed the event and testified against the accused was supposed to throw the first stone.  This was a way to show the seriousness of giving true testimony.  If you falsely testified and threw the first stone, then you would be guilty of murder.  (And two witnesses were necessary for a crime with a severe punishment as this.)  Jesus says, “Well if you feel like she should be stoned, follow the scripture.  Whichever one of you can throw the stone without sinning, go ahead.”  If you are the witness and will not sin with false testimony, go ahead.   

Now, I know you have seen a video of the men one at a time dropping their rocks.  That is so contextually wrong.  They weren’t carrying rocks with them, and they certainly wouldn’t stone her without a trial by the Sanhedrin, and certainly not in the temple courtyard.  But one by one, they left. (Isn’t it interesting that the older ones go first?)

Jesus is writing in the dirt of the temple. I have heard several people postulate what Jesus was writing. We don’t know, but my best guess is that Jesus’s finger is writing the same thing the finger of God wrote in the Bible before.  

Exodus 31:18 “And He gave unto Moses, when He had made an end of communing with him upon Mount Sinai, two tablets of testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God”. 

 I imagine Jesus writing the Ten Commandments on the ground of the Temple.  He gets to number 9:  “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”  They can’t testify because they didn’t see it themselves.  The witnesses are not present (by the way, neither is the man caught with her), so no decision can be reached, and they realize they have failed to trap Jesus again.  They all leave, and Jesus is left alone with the woman.

And the one without sin, the only one who could righteously judge her, does not condemn her.  But he disapproves of her actions.  He tells her, “Go and sin no more.”  Jesus knows that she made a choice that led to death, but he gives her another chance at life. That’s what God does over and over again in the Bible, Old Testament, and New Testament. Again, it all goes back to the first three chapters of Genesis. 

Genesis 2:17 …but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Adam and Eve made a choice that led to death.   But he doesn’t kill them that day.  They chose death, but God gave them another chance at life.  Don’t tell me the Old Testament is not full of God’s grace.  God would have been right to kill them then and there.  But there is something greater at work than the law.  God is full of grace and mercy.  There were consequences; they were kicked out of the garden and God’s continual presence.  But despite their rebellion, God gives them grace and offers them another chance to choose life.  

The same thing is happening with our woman here.  They present him with a case they strictly see as “law and order.”  Jesus does not ignore the law but shows a more excellent principle at work here.  God’s mercy and grace are more important than the law and (praise Jesus) greater than our sin. The possibility of capital punishment in Leviticus is there to show the seriousness of the sin.  

Like the forbidden fruit,  If you choose rebellion against God, you choose a path that leads to death.  But Jesus does what God always does.  He does not condone sin.  In fact, he commands the woman not to make that choice again.  But he shows that there is something greater than the principle of law and order: the principle of grace and mercy.  The law demands death, but was that God’s plan?  It certainly wasn’t his original plan.  He created a world where death didn’t exist.  But death comes because the world is fallen.  

And that is the way Jesus interprets Scripture.  In the sermon on the mount, Jesus takes several Old Testament laws and then asks us to see the wisdom behind them.  “You have heard that it was said do not murder.  But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment;“  “You have heard that it was said, do not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”  “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

Jesus is looking for the wisdom behind the law.  What does God really want?  Not murdering is great, but God really wants us to treat each other with love and not hate and disdain.  Not committing adultery is good, but what God really wants is for us to view people with respect and not as objects of lust.  

In the time of the prophet Micah, the people of Israel thought they could do whatever they wanted and then appease God with offerings.  Micah said it didn’t work that way.

Micah 6:6-8    “With what shall I come before Yehovah, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?  Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil?  Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”  He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justice and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah asks them, “What does God really want? ” God’s desire is not your religious participation and sacrifices and offerings. What God wants is for you to treat other people justly, show mercy and love, and follow His path, being in a good relationship with Him.  The details of the law don’t matter if you can’t do those three things.

The Pharisees and Scribes didn’t care one bit about the woman they were bringing before Jesus.  They were treating her like an object, not a person.  To them, she was just a tool to help them defeat Jesus.  

Let’s look at one more example of how Jesus interpreted the Old Testament law:

Matthew 19:3-6   And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”   He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?   So they are no longer two but one flesh.  What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”  

The Pharisees asked Jesus a much-debated question of the day.  There were two camps: one said the law allowed for divorce for any cause, and the other said only for reasons of sexual immorality.  Jesus quotes Genesis 2:24.  You want to know what God thinks about divorce?  It should not exist.  “Let not man separate.”  In the world God created, there would be no divorce; there would be no sexual immorality.   Neither of those were intended to be part of God’s world.  

So the Pharisees ask a follow-up question:

Matthew 19:7-9 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?”   He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.   And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

“Because of your hardness of heart.”   Because you just couldn’t be the kind of people God wanted you to be.  Because you choose death instead of life.  “From the beginning, it was not so.”  God gave you an accommodation because you are sinful, but that was not God’s plan.  Jesus is saying that the laws are not God’s best.  They are God’s attempt to start in the place you are and move you toward where you should be.  They are not his ideal.

When Jesus goes to scripture to answer a question about divorce, He doesn’t go back to Deuteronomy; He goes to Genesis.  If you want to know what God really wants, God’s ideal, you must go to when God saw everything was good (Genesis 1-2).  If you want to know God’s marriage ideal, don’t go to Genesis 3.  You know the story: They eat the fruit, they hide because they think God is going to kill them, God curses the serpent, God curses the ground that man must now painfully work, and God tells the woman: 

Genesis 3:16  “Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”You and your husband will have different needs and desires that cause conflict, and He will dominate you.”

You and your husband will have different needs and desires that cause conflict, and He will dominate you.  Put that verse in context!  That is not God’s ideal.  That is God’s punishment.   That is God’s compromise situation in a sinful world.   Do you see how picking and using a scripture out of context can be so dangerous?  

You can pick out an Old Testament law and say it’s ok to kill people for committing adultery.  Even the rabbis in Jesus’ day knew that was not what God intended.  They never used that maximum punishment and ended up abolishing it.   You can pick out a law about divorce from 3000 years ago and say, Look, this is what God said to do!  Just write out a certificate, and you’re done.  But Jesus says no!  Those rules are for when you were in complete rebellion and sin.  That is not God’s ideal.  You can pick out a scripture from Genesis 3 about marriage, but that is for people in sin.  God’s ideal is in Genesis 2.

The Bible is not a law book or a systematic theology book. It is a story, and stories develop over time. This is why some people look at the Old Testament and the New Testament and say, “My how God has changed.”  But God doesn’t change. God is working His plan to bring His people back to the ideal he had in the garden. And he works with us as he finds us.  

This is why we can wear clothes made of two different kinds of fabric and why some of you can eat shrimp. We need to study the laws to seek the wisdom behind them, as Jesus did. It’s not just murder… it is about how we see other people. It is not the details of laws but the idea of doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God.

Say there is a man trying his best to be who God wants him to be.  He wants to follow God.  But he fails. He wants to abandon sin; he wants to do good.  But he fails. That man is me.  That person is you.  That man is David in the Bible, a man after God’s own heart who committed adultery and murder.  That man, David, deserved death.  We all have chosen the path of death.  That is why Paul says:

Romans 3:20,23-24  Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

To the woman in our story today, Jesus chose not condemnation, not law and order, but mercy and grace.  Like Adam and Eve, like King David, like you and me, He gave her another chance to go and sin no more.  Jesus sees us today, and we may stand condemned by others for things we do, but Jesus looks and says to us, “I don’t condemn you, go and from now on, sin no more.”   Paul summed it up:

Romans 8:1  There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

So, yes, study and meditate on the law.  Understand God’s heart and wisdom behind the law so that we may be the people he wants us to be.  But not people who focus on the law, but people who treat other people right, people who love mercy, who choose to be in a relationship over being right, People who walk in God’s path, in proper relation to God.

1.  We don’t have original manuscripts of any book of the Bible.  There are many early versions with minor differences.  Textual criticism seeks to determine which versions are the most reliable.   John 7:53 – 8:11 is not in the earliest manuscripts we currently have.  However, it is found in many reliable manuscripts.  Augustine said that “Some men of slight faith” and others “hostile to true faith” removed the passage for fear that it would encourage adultery.  (Elowsky, J. C. (Ed.). (2006). John 1–10 (p. 272). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.)  There are phrases and some words found in the story that are not used elsewhere in John’s Gospel  (“Scribes,” “Mount of Olives,” “Scribes and Pharisees,” “he sat down and taught them”) that make it sound more like one of the stories in the synoptic Gospels.  The primary reason scholars give for the story not fitting in John is that it doesn’t fit the storyline.  It breaks the flow of the text or adds another day to the Feast of Tabernacles.   I agree that its placement in the narrative is troublesome.

As Michael Rood noted in The Chronological Gospels (page 231), in several ancient texts, this section of John 7 immediately follows John 7:36. Jesus is staying on the Mount of Olives and teaching in the temple during the day.  This would seem to be during the Feast of Tabernacles.  After the feast, Jesus sends out disciples in 35 groups of two, and with all the disciples on mission, we have no specific information about Jesus’ actions or whereabouts.  He likely left Jerusalem as the required feast had ended, and the pressure from the Pharisees and Sadducees was increasing.  The ESV, and many other versions, translate the particle ‘de’ as ‘but’ and make a nice sentence with the previous verse (7:53), making it easier to read in English.  The Greek reads, “Jesus ‘de’ (and or but or moreover, or now) went to the Mount of Olives.”  In his commentary of John in The New International Commentary of the New Testament, Leon Morris says, “The story was attached to some other narrative, but we can only guess.”  

I believe the story happened, was left out (could Augustine be correct?), and reinserted in the wrong location.  It is a passage worth studying because it explains how Jesus understands the scriptures and contains the gospel in practice.  All have sinned, all deserve death, only God can judge, God gives grace to all who have chosen death, God instructs us to live lives worthy of the grace we have been given – Go and sin no more. 

2.  Sanhedrin 41a.