Let's turn together and God's Word to John chapter 8. John the 8th chapter, returning to our survey of this book. As you're turning there, let me give you a couple of notes concerning this passage most likely. Your Bible will have a footnote or perhaps even a header, noting that this passage, verses chapter 7, verse 53, through chapter 8, verse 11, are not included in some of the oldest manuscripts that are available to us. They are included in many manuscripts, but in some of the oldest, they are not. And so it has to be noted that that is the case. We might ask then why is this passage in our Bible? There is ample evidence that would suggest that we ought to include this in the scriptures, the flow of the text itself, the meat of the teaching, as well as other historical evidences, would have us to believe that it is, in fact, an authentic reading. So then we would ask, why was this left out of some of the older interpretations? Why was this passage not included in some of those older translations? Because of the very last verse and the tension between law and grace. The last verse that we will read today concerning this woman who's called an adultery is when Jesus tells her, neither do I condemn you, go and from now on sin no more. There was a great concern among early Christians that this would seem to indicate that Jesus had no concern for the law and that he was actually giving permission for sin. Of course, as we're going to see, that is not the case. But this tension between law and grace is often mishandled. And people will seek to live by a letter of the law and in doing so forfeit grace in their own lives. What Paul is talking about when he talks about the weaker brother, the one who can't even eat at the table because food might have been offered to idols. And so therefore it becomes a stumbling block and they're afraid to sin because the meat on the table now represents something other than meat. Now to the Christian, we know that we have liberty and we are free to eat. But for those who are struggling with the difference between law and grace, they have to watch and they have to look and they have to be very careful because there might be an infraction of law. And so this was passed out of many of the older manuscripts. But thankfully, and texturally, historically, and in the narrative itself, it is justified in being here. And certainly as teachings are in concert with the rest of the scriptures. And so this morning, we deal with what at many points is a complicated and difficult passage, John chapter 8, beginning actually in chapter 753 and reading through verse 11. And your scriptures follow with me as we read together, John 753 through 811. 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. In 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? And this they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus meant 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. The Lord bless the reading of his word and the hearing of his people. For God speaks to us. Having failed in chapter 7, if you will recall, having failed to have Jesus arrested by the temple guards, the Pharisees are now moving to discredit Jesus in the eyes of the people. Jesus in the early dawn of the morning, he rose, says early in the morning, and he goes to the temple. And when he goes to the temple, he sits there to begin teaching and the people gather around to listen to him teach. And I mention it's dawn because that's important. If we look at verse 12, the passage that follows, again, Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world. He now moves into, beginning next week, we'll take this up. He moves to teach them he's the light of the world. But as so often happens in scriptures, there is a confluence of events and circumstances coming together to where the people would be hearing and seeing and experiencing the truth that Jesus is teaching. Jesus even talks to the Pharisees and he said, you look at the skies, you observe the clouds, you observe the color of the sky. And you know what the seasons are, and yet you can't observe the signs of the times that you were in. And so very often, weather and environment, whether it's on the sea or in a fishing boat, often compliment the message Jesus is proclaiming. And so we find here that it also compliments and so it tells us that Jesus arose early in the morning as the sun begins to rise and there would be long shadows cast in the court of the temple. And there Jesus gathered in the court of the temple and he began to teach those who gathered around with him. There is, he's teaching in a peaceful environment, imagine if you will now, a ruckus. As the Pharisees are dragging this woman in to the temple court. Now if they were serious about having a woman tried for adultery, they would have taken her to the Sadducees or a council. But now they bring her in to Jesus' presence to have him judge. Now we have to note that they had pretty much stopped a thousand years before capital punishment for adultery. That had all been ended, they were not observing that anymore. In fact, one of the tensions here is that they are saying that the law of Moses was, she should be stoned. But if Jesus proclaims that she should be stoned, that places him in direct confrontation with Roman law which says that the Jews cannot execute any capital punishment whatsoever, that that belongs solely in the purview of the Roman government. It also places Jesus in teaching, they believe, with his own teaching which is that the meat should inherit the earth, that when he says come unto me all year who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, when he had taught them that it would be the tax collectors, and that it would be prostitutes, that would inherit or harlots, that would inherit the kingdom of God. And so here they have one before him, and they want him to pass judgment. And so what they are trying to do in this third attempt to discredit him on legal grounds, the first attempt was when they came to him and they asked him, the Sadducees asked him, not believing in resurrection at all, the Sadducees said, there's a woman who has had seven husbands, she dies. How, who will be her husband in the resurrection and the life that follows? Of course, they don't even believe there will be a life to follow. So the whole condition is hypocritical, but Jesus not thwarted points out that they don't understand the scriptures, there will be no husband for her in the resurrection. The second time they came was when they were trying to catch him with the issue of taxes. And they said, should we give taxes to Rome? Should we pay money to Rome, seeking to create a conflict over allegiance to Rome? Because if Jesus was to say to the people, God has come to deliver you and you are to throw off the yoke of slavery and bondage, then they would crowd to the Romans. This man is leading the people to revolt against Rome. But if he said, of course you pay your taxes to Rome, then they would say Jesus is claiming that there is one other than God who should rule over us, he cannot be the Messiah. But Jesus again befuddles them and he tells them to pull out the coin and he says who's rendering his own it, they say Caesar. Then he says if you're going to enjoy the protection, if you're going to enjoy the, in our case, the water and the sewer and the trash collection that come from the government, then render under Caesar. That which is Caesar's and render under God, that which is God's. Now the third time, the third time they are seeking to show Jesus as either a law breaker and then have the Sadducees declare that Jesus has violated the law of Moses or discredit him in the eyes of the people. By having him say there is no, nothing to resort to except to uphold the traditions of the Pharisees which had all done away with issues concerning adultery. They were not really observing adultery or immorality at all. And so they were basically trying to align Jesus with themselves rather than being discredited by him or discredit him completely and declaring a heretic. Now this is the situation Jesus is facing and it is one of the most callous moves that the Pharisees could have taken and it shows forth hearts that are calloused. Here is what is at risk, the very life of the woman, for their own ends and for their own purposes, though they have not been seeking to persecute or prosecute this capital offense, they have now drug a woman into the presence and have her tried by Christ. Should he declare that she should be stone? Would they stone her? Would the people and a populist uprising suddenly kill this woman? So to achieve their own goal of the discrediting of Christ, they are placing the life of another at risk. There the issue of the compassionate call of the kingdom is also at risk. Jesus had been telling the people, as I've already mentioned, that it is a kingdom which is open to all, to the tax collector, to the harlot. And now that itself, that message is also at risk and the law of Moses is also being placed at risk here. So all of these are before Christ, placed yourself, if you can, in that position. So much as at risk, we can get some taste of this. We've been placed in positions before where someone will try to put to us a question where a yes or a no answer either one places us in a compromising position. They try to phrase questions to you in such a way that if you agree, you're discredited. If you disagree, you're discredited. Either what you stand for is gone or what you say you stand for or your actions that you've taken make you appear to be hypocritical. We are all placed in situations where people try to catch us off guard or catch us and entrap us in our own words, not because they see truth, but because they seek to discredit you or me or whomever they're speaking to. And so it was with Jesus, but the stakes are so high that much care has to be taken. How will Jesus mark a path through this and uphold all that he has taught? What has Jesus taught? In Matthew, chapter 5, Do not think I have come to abolish the law of the prophets. I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you until heaven and earth pass away, not one Iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. A high standard that Jesus is setting for keeping the law, not one jot or title, not one Iota, not one dot will be removed. He's preserving the sanctity of the law. He never says the law is to be set aside. And then in Matthew, chapter 15, speaking to the Pharisees, he says this, and why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded honor your father and your mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die, but you say if anyone tells his father or his mother what you would have gained for me is given to God, he need not honor his father. So for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God, you hypocrites. Now this is the tension that exists. Jesus has called and accused the Pharisees of being hypocrites and making void the word and the law of God. While Jesus himself has said, I am offering the kingdom to sinners who repent and yet I'm saying that the law must be upheld. What's the function of the law? The law mediates between men. Yes, the law points us to God. Yes, the law convicts us of our sin. It causes our conscience to cry out and to know that we are sinners and need of God's grace. But the law functions in society to mediate between men. Christ mediates between man and God, the law mediates between man and man. Why, in the Old Testament, was sins of this nature, were sins of this nature considered so egregious? Because it was an attack against family, it was an attack against society. The Hebrew mind and ours ought to solve the family as the core of society. The genealogies that are given to us in Scripture, they are given just because those Old Testament names are hard to pronounce or just because someone said, well don't leave me out because I work really hard, no. Those genealogies teach us that just as we learned in our study of the Covenant's own Sunday nights, that back in Genesis the promise was that through your line salvation will come, a Redeemer will be brought forth, through the family of Abraham, there would be a line when there are children that are born because of outside of family relations that subverts and it brings disorder into genealogies and to family and into society. We see the effect of it in our own culture and in our own society, we know that it's true, we're very individualistic in our thinking however, and we don't believe the family to be central to a well-ordered society. Though our society is beyond being afraid and it is thinning at points and already we see the chaos of broken relations and we know that that runs parallel to the destruction of the family, the organized assaults and attacks on the family, we somehow are so, I don't know if it's afraid or just hesitant to link the two together, but in the Hebrew mind it was. And so this particular sin was considered not just a private offense but an offense against society because it disrupted society, it disrupted the people in the land, it was the family of God that was to move into the promised land and to take it and not marry from outside, all of those restrictions, all of those constraints, what for? To keep them pure and whenever there was a birth outside it was not considered to be a child of promise, Abraham's children for example, only one was a child of promise. And so we saw the importance of God's economy and God's structure of society and people beginning in the family. And so the offense of this is well recorded and documented in the Scriptures. And so we have set the stage now for Jesus's standing judge in this case. The Pharisees are hoping to trap Jesus to discredit him or at the very least to show that he would be forced into their position because in their time there was a general attitude of moral laxity concerning sexual sin. Kind of like what we hear today, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. And it's said without shame and commercials. And we could go on down the line about our television shows and what our culture has adopted and has accepted as a new norm. So Jesus when they tell him this has no response immediately, what's his first response? He begins to write with his fingers in the dirt on the floor of the temple. There are three occasions where the finger of God writes in the Scriptures, the first is when it writes the commandments and the tablets. The second is in the book of Daniel when the king is told in Daniel translates, you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting judgment in other words was being rendered. And the third time is here where our Lord takes his finger and he begins to write in the dirt on the temple floor. Now much has been made of the fact that we don't know what Jesus wrote on the temple floor, that we can't know for sure the words and that is true. We cannot know verbatim what Jesus was writing on the temple floor. But we can know that it is consistent with the rest of Scripture. We can know that it is consistent with his ministry. We can know that it brought conviction into the hearts and the consciences of those Pharisees because in reading it they left, we can know that Jesus would have been consistent with the rest of the teaching of Scripture as he took his finger and he began to write. Was he writing the ten commandments before them? That would be consistent because they brought to him an accusation against the woman. Jesus in simply recording the law and writing those ten commandments in the dirt would have been pointed out to them the law of Moses and then ensaying to them the one of you who was without sin should take the first stone and having the law there before them reminding them as it's right there between them and the woman that they would stone. The woman that they would stone would have their consciences burdened. Perhaps, however, we can find in Numbers chapter 5 a tradition or a teaching of the tabernacle that would have been retained in the temple called the trial by bitter water or the water of conviction. Essentially, it was to determine cases of adultery just as Jesus now had before him. What would happen is that a husband would bring a wife with the accusation of adultery and have her sit and there she would sit before the priest and there would be a bowl of holy water that was involved and the water would have placed in it some dirt from the tabernacle and then she would have her sins recorded in a book and then those sins would be blotted out with that holy water and then she would be made to drink the water. If after drinking the water she in fact was guilty then her womb would expand and the way the scriptures read it says that her thigh would fall off essentially. If she was innocent of the charge then there would be no effect. Was Jesus writing in the dirt the dirt would be consistent with that exercise the Pharisees being trained in the scriptures would know this exercise except here Jesus is turning and now accusing the accusers. He is now saying to them are you without sin perhaps recording for them the process the procedure or writing their sin because each of these Pharisees is also guilty of adultery, writing their sin in the dirt. Jesus used the dust of the temple floor to write out a better sentence he placing their every accuser on trial. He then offered to them that if any of them were themselves undefiled that they could throw the first stone but each one beginning with the older recognizing what was being done and hearing in their own conscience the voice of guilt beginning with the oldest and then going to the youngest they turn and they leave acquitting essentially the woman. Deuteronomy chapter 17 verse 7 on the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death. A person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness the hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death. After the Pharisees leave Jesus now dealing with the civil portion of this there are two issues here civil and religious there is a civil charge brought against this woman of adultery and Jesus dealing with the civil charge now looks at this woman and ask her where are your accusers because it requires the testimony of two or three witnesses to declare her guilty. Nothing around there are no accusers left therefore there is no trial and so Jesus tells her well if they are gone and your accusers have left I do not accuse you. He's saying I was not a witness and on the testimony of one there can be no trial therefore the civil case is a mistrial as it were. I cannot accuse you your accusers have left therefore I do not accuse you the civil portion has been educated and done and dealt with but what what of the woman herself and what of the conscience of this woman who was used in this way here is where we see grace. Jesus does not give permission for sin while the Pharisees left maybe fearing Jesus had collected evidence against them like they had against him why wouldn't they think that. Don't we always believe that when we're against someone we assume they also were as devious as we are and so they also would have believed Jesus would have had something against them maybe that's why they took off afraid that Jesus was going to stand up and say by the way I saw you with and I saw you with whatever it was they moved off perhaps recognizing the plank in their own eye before they determined to start removing the spec and the splinter in someone else's but they were gone the civil case is now excused and Jesus is now telling this woman he knows the reality of her life. When the Pharisees came in they called Jesus teacher when they come into him they say teacher this woman has been called in the act of adultery what does this woman call him Lord she calls him Lord Jesus riding there before what did he write maybe something along the lines of this prayer which I was reading just before the service. This prayer which is in the Puritan book of prayer I appeal from the throne of perfect justice that I throne of boundless grace grant me to hear thy voice assuring me perhaps this is what she saw by the stripes I am healed that was bruised for my inequities that was been made sin for me that I might be righteous in in the that my grievous sins my manifold sins are all forgiven buried in the ocean. I am guilty but pardon lost but say wandering but found sinning but clenched perhaps Jesus was quoting from Isaiah by my stripes you are healed we don't know we don't know when he bent down the second time and he began to write again what he wrote but whatever he wrote seemed to have its effect on this woman. He stood up and said woman where are they has no one condemned you she said no one Lord Lord scripture say that no one can call him Lord unless it is given by the spirit so we can sense in this a repentance and some change in this woman as she acknowledges and recognizes Christ as Lord no one Lord. Jesus not giving permission for sin says neither do I condemn you for in a civil quick case he cannot go and from now on send no more dealing with the religious aspect of this that is the spiritual component of this woman he he exhorts her if in fact you understand if in fact you call me Lord if in fact you know then go and send no more. Jesus could she do she cannot undo that which is done but she can demonstrate that her heart has heard Christ and go and send no more and being accepted by Christ what man will she need to be accepted by her accusers they've all gone and she stands with Christ alone in the temple go he says and send no more the proper response to mercy the forgiveness of our past sin as a resolution to be holy in the future not because works can attain for us salvation not because our personal fidelity somehow merits eternal life but because it is evidence of our being changed lawlessness divides people law unites people it orders our society law condemns us because we are sinners grace saves us why is there a tension between law and grace because grace would seem to lead us away from the law and toward license law would seem to lead us away from grace and toward legalism there is no tension between law and grace law points us to our need of God's grace and it shows us the character of Christ law helps us to know how it is that the children of God should live law reminds us to cry out daily for God's grace and forgiveness and to seek to live a holy life law shows us where we would be if we were abandoned to ourselves we live in an age however where law has been pushed to the side where law has been put away for some sort of a euphoric spiritual sense of wholeness and well-being in self-esteem where can we trace this to we can trace it back to humanism we can trace it back to bad theology even Roman Catholicism as it dealt with venial sin and actual sin teaching us that our actual sins we had to work off venial sin we submitted to Christ but the sin of your life you worked off there is no working off of our sin humanism we go all the way back to Louis the 14th if you've ever been to Versailles the hall of mirrors before Louis a chapel would be placed in the center of every palace and every structure but for him the bedroom occupied the center because he put the chapel out on the outside sensuality humanism the mirrors by which he could behold his own glory all of these things occupied the center of that architecture and that came over here for us and our lives also are built around that way church and communities of faith are pressed out to the extremities while the order and the function of our lives is self fulfillment and self pursuit through sensuality and materialism and entertainment and comfort and ease et cetera et cetera et cetera how is it that we can reorder our lives again how is it that we can place once again the law of God and the grace of the gospel in proper balance and perspective remember the beginning Jesus was in the temple and as dawn shown in the shadows were cast he was there teaching by the end of his teaching the son would have risen and there would have been full light in that court and Jesus moves and he says I am the light of the world whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life after this encounter with the Pharisees Jesus encourages the people don't follow in darkness but walk in the light of Christ don't walk according to the world walk according to the scriptures of God don't order your life after what the world will tell you is fulfilling but seek to follow Christ the tension between law and grace is ourselves we don't like the law because we want to do whatever we will we don't like grace because we want to deserve an earn that by our self righteousness and so we end up with Phariseism because we build our own traditions and declare ourselves righteous in our act at least in our own mind even if no one else does and Jesus wrote with his fingers the sins of the Pharisees or the law of God will our conscience also be burdened and instead of leaving with the Pharisees will we look to Christ and say Lord and then go and send no more that's the key we're all sinners whether your sin is adultery whether it's murderous thoughts whether it's lusting after the material goods of your neighbor whether it is stealing whatever it is that you have sinned in to assault society God's society the command of Christ the same go and send no more this woman was no more a sinner than I and so I hear Christ go and send no more go and send no more evidence of one who dwells with the Lord