The woman caught in adultery.
This narrative, if not inspired Scripture, bears all the traces of a genuine tradition.
I. THE PLOT OF THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES. They brought to Jesus a woman caught in the act of adultery, and demanded his judgment concerning her act. "They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the Law commanded us, that such should be stoned: what sayest thou?"
1. Theft conduct was not dictated by their abhorrence of this sin; for all evidence goes to show flint Roman looseness had penetrated into every part of the Jewish community. Besides, if they had been sincere, they would have taken her to the lawful judge.
2. It was not due to any extreme respect they entertained for the Law of Moses; for they had on this question made it practically void by their traditions. Instead of putting the adulteress to death, they deprived her of her dowry and divorced her.
3. Their true motive was "that they might have to accuse him."
(a) If he answered that the woman should be stoned, he brought himself into collision with the Roman government, which retained the power of life and death in its own hands, and in any case did not punish adultery with death.
(b) If he answered that she should not be stoned, he would be charged with opposing the Law of Moses, and would thus be represented by the Sanhedrin as a false Messiah; for the true Messiah was to establish the supremacy of the Law.
II. MARK HOW OUR LORD BAFFLED HIS WILY QUESTIONERS.
1. He appears at first to disregard their appeal to his judgment; for he began to write upon the ground, and appeared to be absorbed in the act. His silence provokes them to insist upon an answer.
2. The answer is at once definite and effective. "Let him that is without sin first cast a stone at her."
(a) He does not arrogate the right of a civil magistrate either to decree or inflict punishment. He once before declined to become a divider between two brothers in the matter of their inheritance.
(b) He disarmed the self-constituted judges of the woman, by carrying the question into a sphere in which they were themselves brought into judgment. Accordingly, they shrank in his presence from asserting their sinlessness; and they disappeared, one by one, from the scene, leaving the woman alone with Jesus.
III. OUR LORD'S TREATMENT OF THE WOMAN. "Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said to her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more."
1. Our Lord's question does not excuse her sin, nor imply any connivance at it, but is designed to lead her to serious thoughts of it.
2. The woman does not deny her sin.
3. Our Lord's saying does not imply forgiveness. "It is a declaration of sufferance, not of justification," and is designed to lead her to repentance and faith.