John 8

CHAPTER 8THEME: Jesus in temple forgives woman taken in adultery (sixth word)The chapter opens with the episode of the woman taken in adultery. John uses his customary method of following an incident with a discourse. There was a sharp conflict between our Lord and the religious rulers relative to this woman and what should be done with her. Arising from this came the marvelous discourse on Jesus the Light of the World. The episode of the woman, covering the first eleven verses, is not found in some of the better manuscripts. As I am sure you know, our English Bibles are translated from the original languages. The New Testament was first written in the Greek language. Extant manuscripts were used to compile a Greek New Testament; then our English translations were made from that. The Greek text of Westcott and Hort omits the incident of the woman taken in adultery from its position in the eighth chapter of John but inserts it at the end of that Gospel. Nestle’s Greek text includes it but encloses it in brackets.

Augustine writes that it was omitted because of a prudish fear that it would encourage adultery. However, if we read the account carefully, we will see that it does not condone sin. Rather, it condemns sin. We have both a scholarly and moral basis for considering it part of the inspired Word of God.

John 8:1

JESUS IN TEMPLE FORGIVES WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY (Sixth Word)Remember that the night before there had been a meeting of the Sanhedrin and that people were divided in their opinion as to whether or not Jesus was the Messiah. Nicodemus defended Him. Everyone had gone home, and not one had invited Jesus to his house. Early in the morning, He came back into Jerusalem, went back to the temple, and sat down to teach.

John 8:3

What could be more crude and rude and brutal than this act of these religious rulers? As our Lord was sitting in the temple area teaching the people, there is a hullabaloo outside. Then here come these religious rulers dragging a woman with her clothes in disarray, her hair all disheveled, defiant, and resisting them. The crowd would naturally turn and look to see what in the world was happening. The religious rulers bring her right into the midst of the group that the Lord Jesus is teaching! They fling her down on the ground there and make their crude charge. “This woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.” She is guilty, there is no doubt about that. And what she did was sin. Our Lord called it sinHe finally said to her, “Go, and sin no more.” They knew the Law perfectly well: “And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death” (Lev_20:10). Where was the man? The very fact that they did not produce the man also makes it apparent that they were not interested in enforcing the Law. They had another motive.

John 8:5

They are right about the Law of Moses; there is no way of toning it down. She should be stoned. They are putting Him on the horns of a dilemma. Will He contradict Moses? Will he say something else, offer some other explanation? They did this to trap Him so that they might accuse Him. They didn’t really want to stone the woman. They wanted to stone Him. Our Lord knew that, of courseHe “needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man” (Joh_2:25). This scene is very interesting. The defiant woman is flung before Him. The crowd has no respect for her embarrassment, her feelings, and they leer at her and crane their necks to see her, adding to her humiliation. Jesus stoops and writes on the ground. In effect, He dismisses the case. He will not join with her accusers. He will not so much as look at her to add to her embarrassment. He stoops down and writes as though He doesn’t even hear them. This is the only record that we have of His writing anything. He is the One about whom more books have been written, pro and con, than about any other person who has ever lived; yet He never wrote anything except this in the sands of the temple floor, which the wind or the feet of the crowd erased. What did He write? Of course we don’t know, but I can make a suggestion. Turning back to the prophets, we pick up something quite interesting: “O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters” (Jer_17:13). Now, who had forsaken the Lord? This woman? Yes, she had.

The religious rulers? Yes, they had. Their names shall be written in the earth. This is what I think He wrote, linking their names with sins of their past. Perhaps He wrote the name of a woman living in Rome. One old pious Pharisee had had an affair in Rome when he was a young fellow.

His wife didn’t know about it; no one in Jerusalem knew about it; but our Lord knew that old rascal. As He just wrote the name of the woman, the old Pharisee came over and saw itand suddenly remembered that he had another appointment. Perhaps one of the scribes made regular trips to Ephesus, a great sinning place, to a certain address over there which Jesus wrote in the sand. The scribe looked at it and said, “Oh, my gracious!” He left hurriedly. Another scribe may have left a girl in Galilee who was pregnant. He didn’t marry her, and he didn’t think anyone knew.

Our Lord wrote the name of the girl and the scribe’s name with it. “Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance” (Psa_90:8). Secret sin on earth is open scandal in heaven.

John 8:7

Jesus gives the requirements for being a judge, which is something for all of us to hear. We have the right to be the judge of others provided we meet the requirement. That requirement is sinlessness. May I say to you, my friend, I don’t know about you, but that takes me out of the stone-throwing business. An old Scottish commentator says that the elder ones left first because they had more sense than the younger ones. The younger ones hung around until they saw their own names come up, and then they finally caught on and left also. So there was not a person left there who could throw a stone at her except One. Only Jesus could have thrown the stone at her. All the others had slinked away. What hypocrites they were!

John 8:10

This woman was guilty of sin, and according to the Law of Moses an adulteress was to be put to death. Is Jesus reversing the Mosaic system? No. He is placing His Cross between that woman and her sin. This One who is the Son of the virgin, who Himself was under a cloud all of His life, is going to the Cross to pay the penalty for even the sin of this woman. He did not come into the world to condemn the world. He did not come to judge this woman. He came into the world to be a Savior! A great many people think they are lost because they have committed a certain sin. I have news for you. One is not lost because he is a murderer, or a liar, or a thief, or an adulterer, or because he has borne false witness or committed other sins. A person does these things because he is lost and does not believe in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ forgives sins. He is the Savior. He died for the sins of the whole world. Any person who comes to the Lord Jesus Christ is forgiven.

John 8:12

JESUS IS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD (Sixth Word)We notice that Jesus often follows this method. After an incident or a miracle, He gives a discourse on that subject. Notice He says, “I am"this “I am” occurs again and again. In the Old Testament, Jehovah is the “…I AM THAT I AM …” (Exo_3:14). Very frankly, we are told very little about God. We know He is the self-existing One, that He has all wisdom and all power. The Lord Jesus came to this earth not only to redeem man but also to reveal God to man. Jesus greatly expands our understanding by using the commonplace things like bread, light, and water to symbolize Himself.

He uses the ordinary to speak of the extraordinary, the physical to speak of the spiritual, the temporal to speak of the eternal, the here-and-now to speak of the hereafter, the earthly to speak of the heavenly, the limited to speak of the unlimited, and the finite to speak of the infinite. Jesus gives us a revelation of God when He tells us that He is Bread, He is Water, He is Life. Then we understand that not only is God self-existing, but that He also meets our every need. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life” (Joh_6:35), “I am the light of the world” (Joh_8:12), “I am the door” (Joh_10:9), “I am the good shepherd” (Joh_10:11), “I am the resurrection, and the life” (Joh_11:25), “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (Joh_14:6), and “I am the vine, ye are the branches” (Joh_15:5). Here Jesus is saying, “I am the light of the world.” He has just exposed the sin of the scribes and the Pharisees who brought the woman guilty of adultery. Because they were just as guilty as she, they had to flee. When one turns on the light, all the rats, the bats, and the bedbugs crawl away. Light exposes sin, which is the reason the scribes and the Pharisees had to leave. “I am the light of the world” is the highest claim that He has made so far in the Gospel of John. One of the definitions of God is that He is Light (see 1Jn_1:5). He is absolute in His holiness and in His justice. Even physical light is one of the most complicated things as well as one of the most essential things for us. Who really knows what it is? In some ways it acts like waves, and in some ways it acts like particles of matter.

The startling thing is that men, acting on both of these definitions or principles, have been able to make remarkable inventions and discoveries. Some say that both are true and yet others say both can’t be true. Is light the absence of darkness? Is darkness the absence of light? We say a room is filled with light. What do we mean?

Does it weigh any more when it is filled with light? There could be no such thing as color without light. The red rose is red because it has absorbed every other part of light except red. That is the reason we see red in the red rose. We don’t understand light, and certainly a child doesn’t understand light, but he does know enough about it to turn on the light switch when he enters a dark room. Jesus Christ is the Light of the World. Just as the sun is the physical light of this world, He is spiritual Light. Just as a little child can have enough sense to come into the presence of light, so any sinner today, though he be “a fool and a wayfaring man” (see Isa_35:8), can come into the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are those who deny that Christ is the Light of the World. They are walking in a lesser light. As the moon has no light of its own but reflects light from the sun, so this civilization that we live in today owes everything to Christ. We have hospitals, charities, orphans’ homes, consideration for the poor, rights of labor because the Lord Jesus came to this earth. The reason we have problems in these areas today is that we have wandered too far from the Light. The world is just walking in moonlight, as it were. How this poor old world needs to get back to the Light which is Christ. “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” There are those who have attempted to liken Jesus the Light to the headlights of a car. Friend, the headlights of a car do not lead anywhere. Who does the leading?The fellow at the steering wheel. Unfortunately, this is the way many Christians try to live their lives. I don’t consider this an apt illustration of Christ. During this Feast of Tabernacles, Israel was remembering the deliverance when the pillar of fire led the children of Israel through the wilderness. They were celebrating this with a torch parade. When Jesus said, “I am the light of the world,” this is what He was referring to. Whenever and wherever the pillar of fire led, the children of Israel followed. We are to follow Him in like manner, looking to Him as the Light of the World.

John 8:13

There is now a sharp conflict between the religious rulers and Christ. They are really accusing Him of boasting when He claimed to be the Light. Jesus gives them a threefold reason why His testimony is true. First, He says, “I know whence I came.” He says He knows where He came from and, hence, He knows Himself. By the way, folk on this earth can’t tell you where they came from. Scientists try to tell us what has happened millions of years ago; yet none of them were here even one hundred years ago. They don’t know where they came from; they can only speculate. But the Lord Jesus knew from where He came.

John 8:15

His second statement is that He judges no man after the flesh. Any judgment that you or I make is after the flesh. Our judgment is limited because we simply do not have all the facts. The theory of evolution is an example of this. Because our judgments are based on very fragmentary facts, they really are speculation. Either man accepts speculation or he accepts revelation. If one judges according to the flesh, he will naturally follow speculation. The Lord Jesus says that He does not judge according to the flesh. He gives the judgment that comes from heaven. He gives God’s viewpoint, God’s estimation. This is revelation, and it differs from man’s point of view. That is why the hostility of these religious rulers is mounting.

John 8:17

Here is the third reason that His testimony is true. The Father had borne witness to Him. They had heard the Father’s voice out of heaven.

John 8:19

They are reflecting on His birth again. Notice that Jesus calls God “my Father” in a different relationship from what you and I have with Him through faith in Christ. Remember, He said to Mary after His resurrection, “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father” (Joh_20:17). We become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ, but Jesus is His Son because of His position in the Trinity. He is God the Son, and He addresses God the Father. This has nothing to do with generation or regeneration, but it has everything to do with His position in the Trinity. “If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also.” Here is the cleavage. Here is the real issue. There is no middle ground. If you are going to know God the Father, you must come through Jesus Christ. There is no other way.

John 8:20

The treasury was in the women’s court. This was where they had brought the woman taken in adultery. You will notice how much these Jews were in the dark. First they ask, “Where is thy Father?” Now they ask, “Will he kill himself?” They know nothing about the fact that He has been instructing His own that He is going to Jerusalem to die at the hands of the Gentiles, that He will be delivered up to die by these very same religious rulers, and that He will die a redemptive death for the sins of the world. Will He kill Himself? No! He will give Himself a ransom for many.

John 8:23

We find this same thought in 1Co_2:14. Human knowledge can be understood by any other man who has a human natureif his IQ is high enough. But divine knowledge is different. Only the Spirit of God can take the things of Christ and show them to us. That’s what He is saying here.

John 8:24

People die because they are sinners. That is the natural consequence of sin. “If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.” Can a person be saved on his deathbed? Yes, if he accepts the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior. But a person can reject Christ too long, just as these Jews did. There comes a time when one has rejected Christ too long and then will not ever want to accept Him.

John 8:25

These Jews did not know what His mission was, His work was, nor did they know Him. “Where is thy Father?” “Will He kill Himself?” “Who art Thou?” Jesus answers that His statement concerning Himself is always the same. He consistently claims that He is the Messiah, the Savior of the world.

John 8:26

Our Lord always maintained that what He was doing and saying was what the Father wanted Him to do and say. He claimed that God the Father had sent Him and that He was doing the Father’s will. He never appealed to His own mind or His own intellect. This is an example for us who are preachers. It is God’s Word that we are to be giving out rather than messages that are the product of our own intellects.

John 8:27

They missed the whole point. They are of the earth; they do not understand heavenly things.

John 8:28

When Jesus calls Himself the Son of Man, He is referring to Dan_7:13-14. The Son of Man comes to the Ancient of Days to be made ruler of this universe. So the Lord Jesus is referring here to His crucifixion and also to His crowning that is yet to come. After the death and resurrection of Christ, many of these religious rulers believed. We are told in the Book of Acts that many of the priests in Jerusalem believed. This is what He is saying to them now. Afterwards they would know that He is the One He claims to be. It is the redemptive death of Christ that explains Him, why He came and who He is. One cannot really know who He is until one knows what He has done.

John 8:29

Have you ever finished a day without looking back on it and wishing that you had done some things a little differently? Our Lord never finished a day with a regret. He always did those things that pleased His Father. He is making it abundantly clear that He has come to do the Father’s will.

John 8:31

Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone. It will produce something. After a person believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, he will want to “continue in His Word.” The proof of faith is continuing with the Savior. As the pastor of a church, I learned to watch out for the person who is active in the church but is not interested in the study of the Word of God. Such a one is dangerous to a church. The truth shall make you free. The truth is that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. He is the Truth. First we come to Him as our Savior. Then as we go on with Him, we know by experience that we are free. We are free from the penalty of sinwe don’t need to lie awake at night worrying about going to hell. He doesn’t even ask us to live the Christian life. He asks us to trust Him and let Him live His life through us. When we yield to Him, we are free.

John 8:33

They lied when they said that. They had been in bondage in Egypt and in Babylon, and as they spoke, they were under the iron heel of Rome. What a misrepresentation that was.

John 8:34

They were not free physically, and they were not free spiritually. They claimed to be Abraham’s seed; yet they sought to kill Jesus. “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin” is in the present tense. If you continue in a life of sin, you are a servant of sin. I doubt if any of us go through one day without sinning, but the child of God comes to the Father every day and confesses his sin. The child of the Devil will never do that. This is the thought of Rom_6:16, “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey …?” Jesus gets rather subtle now. A servant may come and work for you during the day, but when evening comes, he gets his hat and goes home. The son comes in, pitches his hat in a corner, sits down and relaxes because he is the son. The Lord was telling these rulers that they are not really God’s children. They were in the temple then, but they wouldn’t be there long. In A.D. 70 Titus came and took every one of them away and sold them into slavery. The five o’clock whistle had blown, and the servants left the house. The Son makes us free indeed. We do not have to be the servant of sin. Many Christians accept defeat and failure as a normal Christian life. God never intended us to live like that. He intends us to live for Him by the power of the Holy Spirit.

John 8:39

The old adage says, “Like father, like son.” Although they claim that they are the children of Abraham, Jesus tells these men that if they were truly the children of Abraham, they would act like Abraham. Instead, they are trying to kill Him. So instead of being the children of Abraham, they are, in fact, the children of the Devil. Satan is the originator of murder and of lying, and they were being his imitators, his children. “Ye do the deeds of your father.” Notice that they again bring up the subject, “We be not born of fornication.” When I first entered the ministry, I took the position that one could deny the virgin birth and still be a Christian. I don’t do so today. If we deny the virgin birth of Christ, I believe we are joining this taunting crowd who said, “We be not born of fornication.” Yet, this crowd want to claim that God is their Father. Jesus says, “If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.” How do we know that God is our Father? John, in his epistle, gives us this answer: “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him” (1Jn_5:1). These Jews thought they were the children of God when they were actually the children of the Devil. We find the same idea today. This doctrine of the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man has brought us into a lot of trouble. It has shaped the philosophy of our nation. We sit down at a conference table with the children of the Devil, and we call them the children of God. I am afraid that our nation has been deceived by other nations of the world because our wise diplomats and smart politicians are simply working on the wrong premise.

The Bible does not teach the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. Obviously Jesus did not teach the universal fatherhood of God because He was saying to these religious rulers that they were children of the Devil. Apparently, there are some people who are not the children of God! One becomes a child of God only through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The words of Jesus antagonized these men. Yet, Jesus insisted that His words are truth. He also insisted that none of them could convince Him of sin. Jesus is from God, and anyone who is a child of God will listen to Jesus Christ. People still don’t like to hear that today. Folk try to think we’re all nice, sweet brothers to each other, and they talk of love, love, love. My friend, if you are going to stand for the truth today, then you will denounce the evil just as our Lord did. That is going to bring antagonism.

John 8:45

Isn’t it interesting that Jesus can tell people the truth and they will not believe. It arouses their intense antagonism. Yet people will believe the wildest rumors and the biggest lies. Dictators have learned that. Hitler was very frank about this in his book when he said that if a big lie is told again and again and again, finally the people will believe it. Today advertisers and the news media have learned this also.

John 8:46

Jesus put His very life on the line when He asked, “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” This is one of the great proofs of the deity of Christ. Believe me, if any of His enemies had had one shred of evidence against Him, they would have used it. They have no logical answers for His questions. So what do they do? They come up with ridicule. I learned this method long ago when I was on a debate team. When they have no logical answer, they resort to ridicule. Listen to the Jews. “You’re a Samaritan; you have a demon"as I’m sure you know, demon is the correct translation. This is name-calling and pure ridicule.

John 8:49

I wish we could see Him standing in that crowd. They hate Him so much that they want to kill Him. They have murder in their hearts, and He has nothing but love in His. He is going to go to the Cross to die for them. They are thinking of death for Him, but He is offering them life. “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.” He is offering them eternal life, spiritual life. My friend, this Jesus is more than a man.

John 8:52

Did Abraham ever see Christ? He certainly did. The appearance of God to people in the Old Testament was an appearance of Jesus Christ to these people. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (Joh_1:18). Then, too, although Abraham’s body was buried there, yet Abraham was really not dead but was in the presence of God. Jesus makes this very clear, as recorded in Luk_20:38. “For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.” The liberal theologian today teaches that Jesus Christ was a great teacher but that He never really claimed to be God. My friend, listen to this. “Before Abraham was, I am.” Not, I wasI AM. He is the Jehovah, the I AM, God. The Jews understood perfectly. Because they knew precisely what He was claiming, they took up stones to kill Him for blasphemy. The issue is Jesus Christ. He put these Jews on the spot. They had to make a decision concerning Him. You must make a decision concerning Him. Either He is the Truth or He is a liar. Either He is God and Savior, or He is not. You must decide. Either you accept Him or you reject Him. Remember that your decision does not in any way change who He is. He is the great I AM, Jehovah, the eternal God. Your decision is to accept or deny this.