What Is Wrong, What Is Sin?
John 8: 1-12 NKJV
Purpose: To know what is sin
and wrong according to God’s standards mentioned in the Bible.
8But Jesus went to the Mount of
Olives.
2 Now early[a] in the morning He came again into
the temple, and all the people came to Him; and He sat down and taught them.
3 Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught
in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst,
4 they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman was caught[b] in adultery, in the very act. 5 Now
Moses, in the law, commanded[c] us that such should be stoned.[d] But what do You say?”[e]
6 This they said, testing Him, that they might have something
of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His
finger, as though He did not hear.[f]
7 So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up[g] and said to them, “He who is
without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” 8 And
again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 Then those who heard it, being convicted by their
conscience,[h] went out one by one, beginning with
the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman
standing in the midst.
10 When
Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her,[i] “Woman, where are those accusers of
yours?[j] Has no one condemned you?”
11 She
said, “No one, Lord.”
12 Then Jesus spoke to them again,
saying, “I am the light of the world.
He who follows Me shall not walk in
darkness, but have the light of life.”
Footnotes:
M-Text
reads He saw her and said.
This is the Word of God
for the people of God.
Praise be to God.
Amen.
What Is Wrong, What Is Sin?
John 8: 1-12 NKJV
Purpose: To know what is sin
and wrong according to God’s standards mentioned in the Bible.
In this part of the Gospel, John is telling
us that is morning and Jesus is coming to the temple, to keep teaching people
about the right interpretation of the Scriptures, God, and the Kingdom.
Remember that the New Testament was not written yet. The Scriptures that Jesus
was teaching were the Torah, our Old Testament. The Scriptures had authority;
that is why Jesus taught and instructed them. Scriptures have authority because
they are based on the power and universal truth that reflects the character and
desires of their author, God. God has
given us His written Word in order to know what is wrong, what is sin. In order
to know how we can change from sinners to saints, from sin to obedience to His
Will. Jesus knew the importance of Scriptures. That is why He taught about them. He was
always talking about the Law; that is, our Old Testament.
Actually, it is not an easy task to
understand Scriptures. It takes a lot study, prayer, and discernment. It was
the same in those times. It was very difficult to understand the Torah, our Old
Testament. In fact, people in those times took the difficult questions about
religion to Rabbis for clarification and enlightenment. Nowadays it is the
same: we approach to our pastors and Bible school teachers with difficult
questions for the same reason, clarification, in order to be better educated
and make the right choices, and be enlightened. We want to know the Holy
Scriptures, because they are the first-hand way to get to know God, our Lord
and Creator. However, in this case, Jesus’ enemies, the scribes and the
Pharisees, approached Him with the evil intentions to discredit Him and to
shame Him in front of the people who respected Him. They came with a difficult situation with a woman caught in adultery.
In the eyes of the Jewish law, adultery
was a very serious crime.[1] The Rabbis said: “Every
Jew must die before he/she will commit idolatry, murder, or adultery.”[2] Adultery was one of the
severest sins, and its punishment was death for both who were caught in
adultery, the man and the woman. It is remarkable how the genuine and committed
Jews were willing to die before offending God with such actions: idolatry,
murder, or adultery. So in the pure sense of the Law, the scribes and Pharisees
were perfectly correct. This woman was guilty of adultery and she met the
criterion of being stoned until she died.
The situation or the dilemma with which
the scribes and Pharisees wanted to confront Jesus was, if He, Jesus, agreed
with them to stone the woman, two things would follow Him. He was going to
contradict Himself because he was teaching, preaching, and practicing mercy and
love for sinners. Remember that Jesus
was called the friend of sinners. Second, Jesus could come into a serious
problem with the Roman authorities because the Romans were the only ones who
had the right to pass the death sentence on anyone. The Jews didn’t have the
right to do it. On the other hand, if He
said that the woman should be pardoned, then His enemies could accuse Him of
breaking the Law of Moses, and of course they would say that He was ignoring
and even encouraging the sin of adultery.[3]
Can we understand what kind of people and how low their morals and ethics were?
They wanted to trap Jesus. The scribes
and Pharisees wanted not just to erase Jesus from their lives. They wanted to
do it with cruelty, nastiness, and meanness. My dad used to say that man,
referring as humanity, man is the only creature who can destroy himself/herself
just for pleasure. I think the
scribes and Pharisees were enjoying the idea of the massacre and the
destruction of Jesus. Have we been in a
position where we wanted to stone someone for something wrong but didn’t see
our own wrongdoings that the majority of times are similar to or the same as we
point out in people? On the other
hand, when we have been redeemed and Jesus has changed our hearts and
consequently our actions, there is something new inside us, the righteousness
of God which through the Holy Spirit is telling us what is sin and what is
wrong and not to do it.
Here is where a lot of people get
confused. There are mean and cruel people out there, or maybe at some point in
our lives, we were the scribes and Pharisees of other people. It is one thing
is to judge and another to condemn. We as humans are always judging. The act of
judging means that we are assessing, we are evaluating the situation, the
behavior, the intentions of someone. If we don’t judge, we cannot discern what
is right and what is wrong. Judging is part of our humanness. We need to judge
in order to discern what is morally and ethically right. To judge is important
because we need to draw concrete and clear conclusions for our lives.[4] To judge is important in
order to please and obey God. Now it is
different to condemn. To condemn is to censure and to criticize. It is to
pronounce a verdict. In the specific
sense of our Christianity, to condemn means to say if someone is or is not
going to hell. It is the role that belongs only to God.
I need you to notice how God connects
everything. God, throughout Scripture, talks about the intentions of the heart.
The intentions of the human heart are closely linked or connected to the
thoughts and ideas of our human minds. We don’t need to be confused about doing
the morally and ethically right things expected from God. In the case of this
part of Scripture, the intentions of the hearts of the scribes and the
Pharisees were cruel and mean because they wanted to condemn. They didn’t want
to be better persons in order to please YAHWEH, that is, God. They didn’t want
to help others to be better Jews. They were self-centered, focusing on their
own agendas, not on God’s agenda. They wanted to kill the woman caught in
adultery.
Yes, the scribes and Pharisees were
right when they accused her, but the intentions of their hearts were wrong.
They wanted to kill Jesus and on the way to doing it they didn’t care about
others. In this case, they wanted to kill the woman as a scapegoat in order to
trap Jesus.
This
story is very difficult because it can easily be misunderstood. If we are not
careful, we can get the impression that Jesus was easy on sin. We have to
understand how Jesus treated this woman and how He applied His authority. In
verse 11 Jesus is telling her that He doesn’t condemn her, that she is free, BUT there is a big, huge condition: SIN NO MORE. As William Barclay has
noticed, “In effect what He [Jesus] was doing was not abandoning judgment and
saying, “Don’t worry; it’s quite all right.” What He [Jesus] did was to wait for the verdict.” In
other words, Jesus with His attitude and His words at this moment was not
passing verdict. Jesus was saying, go and prove that you can do better that
this. I am with you always and I am going to help you to stop doing this sin of
adultery. At the end of the day, your behavior will tell if you stop offending
God or not.
I think that it is important to refresh
in our memories what sin is. First the concept of sin is related to religion
and Christianity. So according to the Bible dictionary, sin is, in Hebrew or in the Old Testament, a revolt or transgression,
and it signifies an intentional and careless act of disobedience against God.
In the New Testament, is the same, it is the act of disobedience toward God’s
will.
So, my dear ones, this story in the Bible
has so much to teach us today, as does the rest of the Bible. It is still very
important and relevant to be clear when Jesus comes and commands us to obey God, because when we don’t obey, then we
clearly sin. Jesus was clear, and Jesus is clear to us today. He is telling
us the same thing that He told the woman:
I am not going to pronounce verdict yet,
but go and SIN NO MORE. Go
and prove that we can do better than what we have been doing. Go and be a
better Christian. Go and be a better spouse. Go and be a better mother, father,
daughter, son, a better person. Today, we are sure as the woman caught in
adultery that Jesus is going to help us to stop sinning, to quit doing what is
wrong, sin no more and obey God. At the end of the day God and the world will
see how we have lived.
Let us
pray,
Dear
and Good Father
Thank
You so much for The Holy Scriptures. It is through them that we know what is
wrong, what is sin, and what pleases You. Help us to stop doing what is wrong,
what is sin, and obey You. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen
[1]
Barclay William, The Daily Study Bible
Series. The Gospel of John. Vol. 2(Philadelphia, PN. Westminster Press:
1956), 2.
[2]
Ibid.
[3]
Ibid.
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