What can we learn from the woman of John 8 who was “taken in adultery”?What does it really mean that she was “taken”?What does the structure of John 7:53-8:12 tell us about the central message of this passage?What does it mean for our lives today?

What can we learn from the woman of John 8 who was “taken in adultery”?What does it really mean that she was “taken”?What does the structure of John 7:53-8:12 tell us about the central message of this passage?What does it mean for our lives today?

Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.

Ouachita Hills College

Scott Burgess

The Takedown & The Getaway


But anyways, tonight our talk is called The Take Down and The Getaway. I like titles, so I thought that 1 might get your attention. So we're going to take a look at a familiar passage, but hopefully get a few insights that maybe aren't so familiar to you. So, who here brought their Bible? Good, all right.

Go ahead if you would, open up to John chapter 7. And then drop down to the very last verse, verse 53. If we could turn that down just a bit, it's awfully loud. All right, John 7 verse 53 is where the... A lot of people seem to agree that's where the chapter should be.

Chapter 8 should begin right there. And here's what it says, They each went unto his own house, and Jesus went unto the Mount of olives. And I always like to pay attention, close attention to words. Words seem to matter. So I'm going to highlight 1 word there.

Now I don't know which word you think is the most interesting, but for me what got my attention was this little word right here, went. You might think, really? I don't think that's so interesting, but bear with me. As you read the story, then we get to what's probably familiar to you. It says, early in the morning, he, that is Jesus, he arrived at the temple.

All the people began coming to him and he sat down and began teaching them. You imagine what it would be like to have Jesus actually in your midst teaching you? You would have an error-free sermon. Never any mistakes And we could be like those disciples that after his resurrection said, did not our heart burn within us as he opened the scriptures to us. In verse 3, then we read that the scribes and the Pharisees, and whenever you read the scribes and the Pharisees, you know that, oh, something wrong is going to happen.

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman, apprehended in adultery, and stood her in the midst. Now you know the story of this woman right here. She'd been set up, right? I've highlighted a few other words here in a different color and you'll see why I'm doing different colors here in a second, but there's a woman right there. Notice not only did they put her right there in the midst so that all eyes are glued on her, But that little word apprehended right there, we don't always use that word right there.

That appears for the first time in John in chapter 1. You may know the verse. John 1 in chapter 5, Oops, let me flip right over here. John 1, chapter 5, and it says here, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness apprehended it not. Now, depending on your translation or your understanding of the word apprehend, you might walk away with 2 different understandings.

You could take apprehend in the sense of understood, like the darkness just couldn't understand the light. Or it could be in the sense of it got the better of it. The darkness could not overpower the light. Some of your translations will have that. Literally that word right there means took down.

So the darkness could not take down the light. This woman right here, she was set up, but they, you might say literally, they took her down in adultery. You hear people that are fighting, they're politicians, you know, and they think, uh-uh, we gotta win this, take him down. That's not a nice way to think, but that gives you the sense of this word right here. They took her down in adultery, but they weren't satisfied with that.

To them she was just a tool. They don't mind taking her down. To their eyes, she's trash. Well, in verse 4 through 6, though, you see what they're really after. They say to a master, this woman was taken in adultery, the very act.

Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned, but what do you say? Now this they said, testing him, that they might have wherewith to what? Ah, so she's a tool, they're gonna treat her like dirt because they don't care about her, but they really care about his Jesus and they want to see if we can come up with a way to accuse him. The idea being that well, since she was an adulteress, if he says well I'm gonna be merciful to her then ah he's not upholding the law and we can find fault with him and take him down. So they want him to accuse him.

Now you continue in verse 6 and notice this, but Jesus, he got down and with his finger began writing in the earth. Now that verse is just loaded right there. Where do you first meet with Jesus' finger in the Bible? Actually even before the 10 Commandments, Did you know that? You read in the 10 plagues that fell on Egypt, and even the wicked magician said, don't you know Egypt is falling?

This is nothing but the finger of God is doing this. That's the first time you've eaten Jesus' finger. But then yes, Jesus' finger, the first time that it writes is the 10 Commandments. That's right. So when he gets down here, begins writing in the earth, if you really pay attention to words in the Bible, you're supposed to say, you know what, I think this is a hint that he's doing something related to the commandments here.

Now I wonder, do you think he might be writing the commandments or anything related to the commandments here? Think about the story, right? They're wanting to accuse Jesus, right? If you accuse people, you usually accuse people if you're a righteous person, you would make an accusation because somebody has broken the law. They're trying to see if he will, based on their interpretation of it, be found breaking God's law.

Well he gets down, he begins writing in the earth, kind of like letting people know, let me just set the record straight. I'm God, let me show you what is written. And so he got down and he began writing in the earth. Now the story makes it clear that yes, indeed, this is what he's doing. As they continued questioning him, he got up and said to them, The 1 without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

Now, what do you think? The scribes and the Pharisees, are they known for being without sin in the Bible? No, they're known for thinking that they're without sin, but they are full of sin. For instance, setting her up. You read what we're told about this.

They arranged for her, they knew that she would fall in this, and Then they turn around and say, oh, got you, and oh, this is a shame, we need to have you tried. So that was sin right there, setting her up. I want you to notice here that he got up and said, or he spoke. Let's continue on here, let's see what he's writing. In verse 8, again he got down and began writing into the earth.

So we're going to put that again in orange because that's the same phrase we saw at the end of verse 6 there. Now what was he riding? We can surmise it has something to do with the law because he was riding with his finger. And we know that Jesus is God. But let's take a look.

Now those who heard, that's a typo, it's not how, it's who. Now those who heard being exposed or you might say convicted by their conscience, began leaving 1 by 1, beginning from the eldest unto the last. Now, why would they be convicted by their conscience when Jesus gets down and writes in the dust? Holy Spirit, yeah. Well, the Holy Spirit for sure.

But what do you think he's writing? Is he just writing the 10 Commandments? Or is he maybe writing Pharisee, you know, whoever, Jeremiah, adultery, scribe, I don't know, Ryan, lust, theft. He's writing how they are in fact guilty of the law. He's showing them that they're total hypocrites.

And then notice here it points out that Jesus was then left alone and it remarks again that the woman was standing in the midst. Now that's very interesting because they had set her in the midst. They had set her and she was standing right there and she's the accusations brought right? Then Jesus says well excuse me let me write let me write your sins and they realize oh ouch and they begin you know beating a fast retreat But she's left standing. Let that soak in for a second.

So there she is, she is left alone, the woman standing in the midst. Now I highlighted was left here. This may not be so obvious to you, but it's a play on words in Greek. It's almost identical to when it says that they took her down. The first 3 syllables in Greek, katalinenin, sounds like the first 3 syllables of this word, katalithi.

They're not the same word but they sound so similar. I'll show you at the end here a little summary, it'll be clearer. But then Jesus, he gets up, verse 10, and observing that there was no 1 except the woman, you know what he said to her? Where are those accusers of yours? Has no 1 condemned you?

See, they were only too fast to bring her when they thought that they could easily trap her and have an accusation against Jesus. But as soon as he turns the tables and shows their sin and they're gone, why there's no accusation. So we're going to put that in blue right there. Has no 1 condemned you? The obvious answer is, well no, the only 1 left there is Jesus and if anyone was going to condemn her, he could do it.

Remember, he just wrote everyone's sins, but she didn't slink away. He didn't write her sins. It was very plain to everyone what the sin was, but he didn't even take the time to mention that. In verse 11, she says, well, No 1, sir. Jesus said probably the best word she ever heard.

Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no longer. Notice he tells her to go. Now let's just kind of put this together. You notice I put a lot of words in colors, but it may be hard to kind of picture.

Let's just put it all on a screen here and see if you get the idea. If you look at these just these 11 verses right here, the first 11 verses of chapter 8 of John, it begins with Jesus went and then he tells the woman you're to go. Then it says the woman was literally taken down and they stood her in the midst and they wanted to accuse Jesus. At the end, Jesus is left alone and again it sounds in Greek the same as taken down so you'll just have to trust me on that but it's a little closer parallel in Greek than in English. Nevertheless, Jesus was left alone just like the woman was taken down.

Again the woman is left standing in the midst, this time not exposed to shame but ready to be vindicated. And whereas they'd wanted to find accusations for Jesus earlier, now at the end he asks the questions, where are your accusers? There's no 1 to accuse you or me. Well, Jesus had gotten down and began writing in the earth and look at this. He got down began writing in the earth.

Now I think you can probably look at that little diagram there and this is me. You know what I'm always going to point out here. What does that look like to you? It's a chiasm, yes. And so the interesting thing about chiasms is whatever's in the middle.

And right in the middle, look at that, Jesus got up. And he said, essentially without saying it directly, you're guilty, you can go your way. And he's getting ready to vindicate the woman. Now, there's coming a time, says in Daniel 12, 1, where Michael, who is Jesus, is going to stand up. And when he stands, that's going to be an extraordinary time because those who are wicked, they'll have nowhere to go.

They'll be the ones who are going to want to run away from Jesus. And at the same time, when he stands up, it's also going to be on behalf of his people. They will be sealed untouchable. I think we can all identify this woman. Now we may not have all committed literal adultery but then again if we've run off on God we have committed adultery but He is prepared to stand up and vindicate us and let everyone else just go away.

I hope that's where you would want to be. Now here's something that's really interesting, I thought. Remember I told you that that word that I translated take down. It first appeared in John chapter 1, right at the beginning of the book. And it was in the context of light and darkness.

And what it had said right there was, excuse me, and the light shining in the darkness and the darkness was not able to apprehend it or to take it down. Well also in John chapter 12 in verse 35 it says this, then Jesus said to them, yet a little while the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness take you down." Apprehend you. The thing that is super neat in your Bibles, it probably has John 8, 1 through 11, as kind of its own little paragraph. And it's fascinating how a lot of Bibles want to question whether that's really in the text.

They say, well this is probably some later, you know, it's a nice story but it's not really in the Bible. Baloney. It is in the Bible. For 1 thing, it's achaism and people don't naturally do that. God does it all over the place.

So it's got that signature that he wrote it. It's a beautiful picture of judgment and how it works. We're all dragged before the court by the accuser of the brethren and Jesus is ready to vindicate but guess what? It turns out that if you look at that very next verse John 8 verse 12 I got so tickled when I saw this it says again Jesus said to them I am the light of the world. The 1 who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

Wait a minute, there's that whole thing about the light of life. And the other 2 verses I gave you, John 1.5, John 12.35, guess what? It was in the context of the darkness about being able to overtake it, to take somebody down. In this story right here that people are wanting to throw out, the woman had been taken by the darkness, but the darkness couldn't take her down because her savior, the light of the world, was there to vindicate her and set her free. In my mind, this story is genuine.

Hopefully that'll give you a few nuggets to think about. Tonight I'd just like to leave you with a question. Anybody here think you really can, if you're honest, can you identify in some sense with this woman here? Okay good, we got a few honest people. The rest of you can identify, you just don't want to admit it.

Okay, anybody want to have somebody like Jesus that no matter how hard people try to take him down, he can stand up and say, nope, I'm ready to vindicate you. Anybody want that kind of a defense attorney in the end? Amen. Another question though, can any of you identify maybe with those scribes and Pharisees? Oops wasn't supposed to ask that 1 right?

Have we all, Has anybody here not wanted to maybe say, I really got it in for so-and-so, and oh, I'm looking for that right opportunity, and oh, I just hate to point it out, but you know, they really stumbled, and let me just go tell the right person and really set them up for an embarrassment or a fall or whatever? Can you at any point in your experience identify with them? I actually got a few hmms there. Well, it didn't go so well for them, right? They were sent packing.

However, they could wind up being like that woman if they repent. You know, it tells us in the book of Acts that after Jesus rose, a great number of the priests believed, and they became open proponents of Jesus. So even if you're not identifying as that woman, if you're saying, you know what, I've got a nasty heart. I can do some pretty dirty deeds. There's room in Jesus' heart for you too.

If you would like to know more about Audioverse, or if you

Back to Menu

The Takedown & The Getaway

Description

Sponsor

Recorded

Sound Doctrine