Writing Hidden Sins in the Dust: When a Woman was Caught in Adultery

(Reading: John 8:1-11) 1. A woman caught in adultery: The morning after the close of the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus was back again in the temple. It was still thronged with worshippers and when he sat down in his accustomed place to teach, a crowd quickly gathered. Jesus had not been speaking long when a number of scribes and Pharisees broke rudely into the circle of listeners, dragging among them a terror-stricken and dishevelled woman. Throwing her down on the ground at Jesus’ feet they cried, in feigned indignation, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.”

Adultery was exceedingly common at this time, so common that they had ceased to put the law in force against it. Without doubt, the crowded conditions of the city, the makeshift accommodation everywhere and the excitement of the feast provided ample opportunity for illicit associations among the less principled visitors to the feast. Apparently the guilty man had escaped unrecognised, for only the woman was apprehended.

2. Law of Moses for adultery

In the law given by God to Moses, adultery was pronounced one of the most serious offences, undermining as it did the sacred family relationship instituted in Eden and on which the whole fabric of society depended. Hence it was decreed that this heinous sin was to be punished by the death of the offenders. So far, however, had Israel fallen from the high moral standard demanded of them as God’s chosen people that the death penalty had long lapsed and the severest punishment in the days of Christ was to deprive the woman of her dowry and to give her a “bill of divorcement”.

3. Jewish trial for adultery

To catch someone in the act of adultery so that it would hold up in a Jewish trial for execution was no small feat. The witnesses actually had to have seen the couple in the act. Compromising circumstances, such as seeing a couple coming from a room where they had been alone, or even seeing them lying on the same bed, were not sufficient. The witnesses had to have seen the same acts at the same time in the presence of each other for their testimony to hold up in a Jewish court.

So it is very likely that the scribes and Pharisees had set a trap to catch this woman so they could trap Jesus on the horns of a dilemma and accuse him.

4. Setting a trap for Jesus

On any other occasion, the rulers of the Jews would have allowed the husband of the immoral woman to appear before a properly constituted court, and on her guilt being established they would have pronounced their judgement. But the rulers discussed this case among themselves; they saw here an opportunity to set a trap for Jesus. Why not put the case to him and ask his judgment in the light of the law of Moses? If he upheld the extreme penalty of the law they could claim that they were more merciful than Jesus. If he acquiesced in their weakening of the law they would be able to say that he had submitted to the ruling of the rabbis. While if the woman expressed remorse and Jesus counselled mercy, he could be charged with undermining the morality of the nation.

Some have thought that the rulers may have conceived an even more dastardly plan. If Jesus pronounced sentence on the woman according to the law of Moses, they might have carried out the sentence and then had a report conveyed to the Roman governor that Jesus had ordered an execution without first seeking ratification from the Roman authorities. This would certainly have resulted in his own immediate arrest and summary execution.

Whether this terrible scheme entered their minds we do not know but the plan of demanding judgment of Jesus certainly commended itself, and without bothering to find the husband, they hurried the humiliated woman to him.

“Teacher,” they said to him in pursuance of their plan, “In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” It is not strictly true that Moses ordered adultery in general to be punished by stoning. The law simply says that the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death. Jesus did not fall into their trap. He knew that their addressing him as “Teacher” was insincere and intended as flattery in order to pin his favourable attention. He also knew that there was no true devotion to the law of God in their hearts, for in countless ways they had altered and accommodated it to their own laxity and sin. Indeed, he read in their eyes countless secrets which they had kept from their closest associates.

5. The process of atoning

The Jewish method of stoning, according to the rabbins, was as follows: The culprit, half naked, the hands tied behind the back, was placed on a scaffold, 10 or 12 feet high; the witnesses, who stood with her, pushed her off with great force: if she was killed by the fall there was nothing farther done; but, if she was not, one of the witnesses took up a very large stone, and dashed it upon her breast, which generally was the finishing stroke, the death blow.

6. Writing on the dust

Righteously indignant at their hypocrisy, Jesus turned away from them and stooping down, began to write in the dust. At first the priests must have thought that he was seeking to evade the issue. And they repeated their demand. Slowly lifting his head, his eyes met theirs and he said solemnly, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Then Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.

What was Jesus writing in the dust? The Bible does not explicitly tell us. John Wesley in his Wesley’s Explanatory Notes on the New Testament, wrote:

“God wrote once in the Old Testament; Christ once in the New: perhaps the words which he afterward spoke, when they continued asking him. By this silent action, he fixed their wandering, hurrying thoughts, in order to awaken their consciences: and, signified that he was not then come to condemn but to save the world.”

One popular interpretation is that Jesus was listing the names of the Pharisees and their sins in the dust, highlighting their hypocrisy. Another explanation is the fulfillment of the prophecy in Jeremiah 17:13, which speaks of those who forsake the Lord being written in the dust.

Whatever the theories, Jesus makes the accusers see the hidden sins of their lives. They had brought this poor woman to be condemned in order to entrap Jesus, but instead they found themselves condemned before the judgment court of Christ.

7. Has no one condemned you?

Convicted by their own conscience, their one anxiety now was to drop the whole case. Beginning with the eldest to the youngest, they one by one turned and slunk away. The crowd had drawn back from the embarrassing scene and in a few moments Jesus and the woman were alone. “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” Jesus asked her “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Well, may we believe that the terrifying experience wrought true repentance in the woman’s heart and that thereafter she lived a changed life.

8. Attitude of Christ to sinners

This dramatic incident serves once again to reveal Christ’s attitude to sinners and to sin. He did not in any way minimise the woman’s guilt. He did not condone the sin and he called it by its right name. Jesus saw the woman, now truly repentant for her utterly detestable and wicked offence, and he extended pardon and mercy to her.

For the callous and hypocritical rulers who cared nothing for her fate and were only too ready to use her downfall for their own evil ends, he had nothing but scorn and condemnation. They had asked that the sentence of the law be pronounced upon a poor sinner without regard to the mercy of God. By that law, therefore, without mercy they themselves should be judged.

9. Recorded in the books of heaven

The Bible event reminds us, too, that though sin may be hidden successfully from the eyes of men, it is open to the eyes of him who is able to read the thoughts and intents of the heart and is recorded in the books of heaven. One day those books will be opened and sinners will see written the things which they have sought to conceal as the scribes and Pharisees saw their sins written in the dust.

The Jewish rulers in the temple on this occasion were permitted to depart, but from the ultimate judgment of Christ there will be no escape.

10. Go and sin no more

In 1 John 1:9 we are assured that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. How important it is that we do not wait for Christ to uncover our sins, but that we repent of all our sins so they may not in the final day rise to condemn us. Like this adulterous woman, we are guilty and condemned before Him. But rather than condemning us, because of his sovereign grace he loved us enough to die in our place and offer us a full pardon. And since it cost him so much, we cannot take his grace cheaply. We cannot sin and shrug it off by saying, “I’m under grace.” A true understanding of God’s grace never leads to licentious living. That same grace shown to the woman caught in the very act of adultery is available to every sinner. Receive it by sincere repentance and then go and leave your life of sin.

Selie Visa