John 8

Subdivision 3. (John 8:2-12.)Brought to God, in the power of resurrection life. The third subdivision is very distinctly marked as that, and in a double way: both as bringing into the sanctuary and giving the resurrection character of life as communicated to us by One who is both the Resurrection and the Life." And these things are very clearly connected together by the fact that only through death could the sanctuary be opened for us, and resurrection is of necessity therefore the way in. Historically we have not yet come to either; and this part even more distinctly if possible, than the former ones, shows us the anticipative character of the Gospel of John. As already said, there is no rending of the veil in it, as we find it in the Synoptic Gospels: for in John the Word, tabernacling in flesh, displays in Himself divine glory as of an Only-begotten with the Father, full of grace and truth." This is what we find in what is before us here: Christ as the Light of the world, Immanuel, the Son of the Father, perfectly one with Him in all to which He testifies, a Light from which the pretentious self-righteousness of the Pharisees is driven out in confusion, while yet a convicted sinner can stand there, because revealed in grace. Grace and truth are found in Him together, and as the Son He gives the freedom of the Father’s house. Thus we begin here with the soul in the light. The second section shows the light in the soul; which makes Christ Himself the Object before it; who, as the Shepherd of the sheep, leads out His own from the Jewish fold of law into enjoyed salvation, liberty and green pastures. But for this the Shepherd must give His life up for the sheep, and these green pastures are in fact on resurrection ground. This leads therefore to the third section, in which death is met for the believer, and Christ is now the resurrection and the life, Lazarus being here the text of the sermon, as the blind man is in the second section, and the woman taken in adultery in the first. In each case, as we have seen in the impotent man and the miraculous feeding of the multitude, the sermon goes beyond the text.

John 8:2-59

Section 1. (John 8:2-59.)The Life the Light. The first section, then, shows us sovereign grace in action, God Himself the only hiding-place of the convicted and condemned, and freedom therefore by the truth. Here where divine grace is so fully displayed, the history of the text is a lamentable illustration of how little that grace is realized by Christians themselves. We have but to take up indeed the writings of some of the earliest “fathers,” to discover how soon the glory of its light became dimmed in the professing Church, -how soon the Judaism which combatted the apostle Paul from the beginning had overgrown or displaced the gospel which he preached. We may wonder indeed that it could venture to mutilate Scripture itself in such a manner as the MSS. and versions show has been done in this case; but this is what Augustine, as is well known, in a day little later than the earliest copies, charges against “some of little, or rather enemies to the true faith.” We can, in fact, easily understand the motive which would lead to the omission of such a story as is here before us: who could imagine any bold enough to insert it where he did not find it? or the manufacture of so exquisite a piece of forgery as this would be? Indeed, few if any would venture to go quite so far as this. They speak of it rather as of some apostolic tradition, some fragment of true history, not perfectly preserved. They bow it out, in short, regretfully, but in no wise does this compensate for the greatness of the loss. Of course, I am aware that there are difficulties urged, entirely apart from questions of the text. Thus Edersheim objects: “That a woman taken in the act of adultery should have been brought before Jesus (and apparently without the witnesses to her crime); that such an utterly un-Jewish, as well as illegal procedure should have been that of the Scribes and Pharisees, that such a breach of law, and what Judaism would regard as decency, should have been perpetrated to tempt Him; or that the Scribes should have been so ignorant as to substitute stoning for strangulation, as the punishment of adultery; lastly, that this scene should have been enacted in the temple, presents a veritable climax of impossibilities.” But much of this seems to be misconception merely; the rest a strange pledging oneself to what would be impossible for Scribes and Pharisees to do, mad with disappointed hatred against Christ, and bent upon compassing His destruction. As to the penalty of adultery being strangulation, “Michaelis,” says Lange, “has justly denied the authority of the Talmud, and has asserted, on a comparison of Exo 31:14; Exodus 35:2, with Numbers 15:32-35, that the formula ‘put to death’ generally means stoned. Besides strangulation is frequently used first, only as an alleviation of the prescribed penalty, as in the burning in the middle ages.” As to bringing her for judgment to the Lord, there is no evidence of any formal trial instituted, such as would need the production of witnesses. The appeal is to a prophet who should know the mind of God rather than to a judge, who should decide as to the fact. The case was decided according to Moses, law; but were they to act as Moses commanded? Thus the illegality vanishes: they were not setting up a new court, even feignedly; but knowing the grace they cavilled at, they would make Him either act in opposition to this, or come out in opposition to the law itself. As for their respect for decency or the temple, under the pressure of such an opportunity, they were the children of those who murdered Zacharias, perhaps on the very spot where the Lord was at this time: and it would be scarcely safe to theorize in regard to it. The narrative is witness to itself in its inimitable beauty and simplicity, its union of holiness and grace. It is witness also in the place in which it stands, as the introduction to the chapter, the key to what follows in it. In all this part of John the doctrine develops out of a narrative, -some miracle or significant thing, the text (as we have called it) of the sermon following. Take the story of the woman away, you will not realize in the same way at all the meaning of what is left, a broken statue without a head. This one can hardly show aright except as we take up the chapter, and therefore we may go on to this at once.

1. The Lord returns from the mount of Olives to the temple, and the people flock around Him. His manifest victory over the rulers on the previous days has discouraged open attempts upon His Person; while all the more it has shown the necessity of some bold stratagem to make Him commit Himself in the eyes of the people as an offender against the law, for which they were zealots. It was just the time for such an effort as we find here, which if it were in some respects extreme, only made manifest the more the extremity to which they had been brought. As against the Friend of publicans and sinners also, their plot was well conceived. He had dared, as they murmured, to assume the prerogative of God in forgiving sins, and would evidently not be intimidated from the course He was pursuing by any fear of consequences.

Yet He had not as yet ventured to pronounce the pardon of one openly condemned by Moses’ law. Here was a new case therefore for Him to decide, in which He might easily come into collision with it. Did He not go after that which was lost until He found it? They would bring one lost indeed to Him, and see if He would take the burden of such: “a woman taken in adultery, in the very act!” The law had decided what was to be done: would He venture to annul its sentence? But if not, His reception of sinners must receive some modification; if He did -as they surely rather hoped -His followers would have to make open choice between Him and Moses, and the crowd would certainly drop off from Him. The temptation is obvious, and they had much reason to expect success. Had He not in His sermon on the mount contrasted His own sayings with those of the ancients? And perhaps they had already heard such a saying as that “the law and the prophets were until John.” Such things, doubtless exaggerated and multiplied by common rumor, would encourage them in their hope, as they came forward with their appeal to the Teacher for His judgment. Their surprise must have been great when, instead of answering them, “Jesus, stooping down, wrote with His finger on the ground.” The common version adds: “As though He heard them not;” and others have given a similar interpretation. But He could not have repeated such an action with such a meaning. On the contrary, though we have nothing of any words which might be written, it is plainly the sentence itself which they are to find in the ground. But they do not understand Him, and as they continue asking, He lifts Himself up at last, and faces them. No: He does not reverse Moses’ sentence; let it be carried out: only let there be spotless hands to execute it. “Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone at her.” The sentence of the law is right: yes! but on whom really is the sentence of the law? who shall escape it, if it be strictly applied? Manifestly, it is as a teacher, not a judge, that He is answering. They might say, Is law and order to come to a stand-still, because there are no spotless hands to execute it? Plainly not: nor, if the Lord were speaking as a judge, would it seem to have been in place to require any such thing. The judge in a given case has to do with the accused, and not with the executioner. But the Lord distinctly refuses to take such a place in Israel: “Man,” He says to one who would have put Him in it, “who made Me a judge or a divider over you?” But if, as here, He is appealed to as a teacher, He will answer as a teacher; and then very differently.

In this character, it is with the appellants that He has first of all to do, and not directly with the accused; and this is accordingly His course at this time. They would exhibit Him as one in opposition to Moses; He makes them realize that He alone it is who understands Moses, and uses the law with them for the purpose for which it was given, making them feel the sharp edge of its universal condemnation, in order that they may realize their need of that grace at which they cavil, and which He had come to declare and minister to men. “He that was without sin” was indeed the man the law was seeking. For the lack of finding one, the death it threatened brooded over all; and none could see the face of God and live. Here was the first thing they needed to realize, in order to know the joy of that open face of God, which revealed in grace in the Person of the Son, brought life instead of death -eternal life. “And again He stooped down, and wrote upon the ground.” There it was indeed that man’s sentence was written: that ground out of which man was taken, to which he must return, -dust to dust. Was that sentence upon the woman merely? Was it only upon the gross transgressor? There was the law’s settlement of the question: “the man that doeth them shall live in them”; “the soul* that sinneth it shall die.” Ah, yes: if the glory of God were in the face of Moses, they could not look upon it there: grace was the sinner’s only refuge; it was theirs.
But they will not bow themselves to this. They stand in the light convicted, but only to flee out of it into the covering darkness. “And they, having heard that, went out one by one, beginning with the elder ones until the last; and Jesus was left alone, and the woman where she was in the midst.” Thus the attack has failed; the would-be accusers are silenced; they leave behind them even the sinner herself: it has become impossible for them to touch her. On her part, she remains: the light which they have found so intolerable reveals no more as to her than she has known already. Guilty, lost, she was and is: the retreat of her accusers has not altered that; to what it has left her as yet she knows not. He has not reversed Moses’s law, whose words have yet inexplicably for the moment freed her. To herself He has not yet spoken. What will He say -what can He -with whom there is an authority that can make the leaders of the people bend and give way before it? Now she hears His voice again, and to herself, questioning, “Where are those thine accusers? has no one condemned thee?” And she says, “No one, Lord.” He says again: “Neither do I condemn thee: go thy way; henceforth sin no more.” Now we cannot say what, or if any work, was wrought in the woman’s soul. She utters no word which would entitle us to say that there was faith in her to lay hold of the grace that there was in Him for the chief of sinners. On His part He says nothing as to forgiveness of sins or of salvation. He has not come to judge the world, but to save the world. If the judges in Israel throw up her case, therefore, she is free. It is a great deliverance for her, and may be the type and prelude of one far greater.

But the question as to this that remains does not at all affect the truth as presented to us here of God revealed in grace in the Person of the Son, in whom every soul hopelessly condemned and guilty may find refuge. Grace and truth are in Christ Jesus, and the Life is the Light of men. Whether she availed herself of it or not, on His side the sanctuary was opened; and in a world where righteousness was not, -where those who would claim it had to retire abashed and confounded from the presence of Him who for those accepting condemnation was but a hiding-place. The sanctuary is opened then in sovereign grace, though the actual bringing to God, and the work that brings there, have not as yet found adequate expression. Holiness is found, however, in its true relation and due order: no condemnation leading on to no more sin. Grace and not law is the power for holiness. 2. The Lord returns to His speech with the multitude, interrupted by the appeal of the scribes and Pharisees, in words which have plain reference to what has just taken place. In that temple which, up to the moment of His final rejection, He was accustomed to speak of as His Father’s house, where the Glory of old had tabernacled, and in the treasury in which the gifts of the worshippers were deposited, He openly claims that glory as His own. “I am the Light of the world,” He says: “he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” The Sun is indeed rising above the hills of Judea; and the nations far and wide are to enjoy its light. Not only so, but Israel herself is beginning to be seen as part of that world which has been lying in the darkness. Sin and unbelief have shut out from her the glory which was or should have been her own, and now are shutting out the fuller splendor into which that earlier light has broadened. Israel has not vindicated any peculiar claim to that for which she has as a nation had no eyes, no heart.

Light is for those that have eyes, and for practical use. So now it is “he that followeth Me”: his alone is the blessing; he “shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” Christ is the Life which objectively is the Light of men. In His words and acts the manifestation of God, the world in its contradiction of Him was necessarily manifested also. He was the test and touchstone of all, and in His presence every thing stood out in its true character. But thus also Christ received in the heart, the life received, becomes subjectively the light for it. In His light it finds light, and thus in following Him it has the “light of life.” A full, divine claim; and the Pharisees from their side naturally at once challenge it. “Thou bearest witness concerning Thyself,” they say: “Thy witness is not true.” But it is plain that that can rightly mean only “invalid.” Obviously, a man may speak truly concerning himself; but his testimony, if unsupported, is insufficient. The Lord tells them that He speaks from knowledge; whereas they have only ignorance to oppose to it. They ought to have been able to recognize His divine mission at least, and owning this, they would have recognized His ability to testify also. But with all their ignorance they judged after a fleshly manner: putting themselves self-confidently into the judge’s seat, for which they were incompetent; and ready to cut off, as in His case, those whom they ignorantly condemned. On His part, He was not taking the judge’s seat, as the case of the woman illustrated. (Had He come to judge, they would all have been cut off.) And yet He truly was the One competent to do so, always in the mind of the Father, and one with it. And if He bore witness concerning Himself, He did not stand alone in this. His witness was valid, for the Father who sent Him was bearing witness also concerning Him. He speaks evidently of those works of power, of which elsewhere He says, “The Father that abideth in Me, He doeth the works”: a witness they could not deny, yet would not accept. And still they meet His claim with their mere ignorance: “Where is Thy Father?” The way to know His Father was to know Himself; and indeed they knew neither. So He spoke in the treasury of the temple, and the hand of God was still upon them: they could do nothing. No one laid hand upon Him; for His hour to deliver Himself up, which waited His will, not theirs, was not yet come. 3. There is still no ear and no heart. He can only tell them, therefore, that He is going away -going to that place inaccessible to them, of which He had elsewhere spoken. They would seek Him, though not in true repentance, thus with no answer: they would die in their sin. The men of Judea in sarcastic mockery say, He must mean to kill Himself: for the suicide’s place of punishment is the only place they can think of where they cannot find Him. He tells them that they are from beneath, He from above: there is in them no work of God; the world in opposition to God has made them what they are: they are of it, as He is not. Thus they will die in their sins, because they will not by faith in Him lay hold of that mercy which God is holding out to them. “Who then is He?” they ask. He can only answer that He is just what He is saying to them. Of what use to go on telling them things for which they have no ear? And concerning themselves also He has much to say and to judge; but of what use? Still the True One has sent Him, and He has truly declared His words to the world. But they do not know of whom He is speaking. Then He goes on to speak of His lifting up which they in their unbelief are going to accomplish. Then will come His manifestation and His vindication. And even now He who has sent Him is with Him, He cannot leave to Himself One who constantly does the things that please Him. 4. A wave of conviction passes over the multitude, and on hearing these words many, we are told, believed on Him; but the expression is no stronger than with regard to those who “believed on His Name” when at the feast-day they saw the miracles that He did; and of whom it is said that “Jesus did not commit Himself to them” (John 2:23-25). Of these also the Lord speaks doubtfully, and presently they resent His words and lapse into unbelief the fiercer for their disappointment in Him. Perhaps they had caught at the lifting up of which He had spoken, as exaltation by the people, followed as He had said it would be by the manifestation of Himself. The Lord’s words to them are certainly words well suited to turn them from any thought of mere political liberty to be gained, and to test them as to their need of a real salvation. Abiding in His word, He tells them, would prove them to be really His disciples.

They would know the truth, and the truth would make them free. But at once they resist and resent this. They, the seed of Abraham, in bondage, needing to be made free? they cry: how can He speak of that? they were never in bondage to any! Spite of its notorious contradiction to the truth, their protest shows of what bondage they were thinking. But the Lord will not raise a question here, but goes deeper. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Every one that practiseth sin is the bondman of sin;’” and this, though men often count it freedom, is the bitterest bondage. Hence, as this is the condition of man in general, the first thing that he needs is to be set free.

There is no such thing in the spiritual realm as self-attained freedom: salvation from sin must be of God. But what then must be the relationship to God of those who are the slaves of sin? Freemen towards God they cannot be, and yet, though rebels in heart and will, cannot escape from service. But unwilling service is again but bondage: the slaves of sin are therefore the slaves of God. Man being what he is, what then can the law, the boast of the Jew, in fact, do for him? To the “soul that sinneth” it denounces death, and the shadow of this hangs over all. The covenant of Sinai is that “which gendereth to bondage, which is (typically) Hagar” (Galatians 4:24); and freedom is unknown to it. We see, therefore, to what the Lord is going on in the next words, seemingly disconnected as they are from what precedes them. “Now the bondman,” He says, “abideth not in the house for ever; but the son abideth ever.” The apostle’s illustration of Hagar and Ishmael cannot but come into remembrance; and the casting out of the bondwoman and her son was now soon to come to pass. Even this is but the dispensational shadow of the dread final rejection into outside darkness which the unsaved sinner, zealous law keeper as he may be, must surely experience. “But the son abideth ever.” He is in the freedom begotten of relationship, and not under the bond man’s law which may cast him out. The principle is general, but there is no application of it with regard to Christians, as the Christian status of sonship was not yet known. In fact, only Christ Himself can make free, and this is the Lord’s application of it here: “If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” For the Son is no mere servant in the Father’s house, but one in word and purpose with the Father; and His work is that salvation-work which alone can make free. Thus again to abide in His word leads into that communion with the Father and the Son, in which alone is found the mastery of all restraints and difficulties whatever. Blessed then is freedom such as this! for ever blessed He who brings us into it. The Lord goes on to speak of how little their Abrahamic lineage was manifested in their ways, -how little they could really claim him for their father. And when they dare to go further, and resting on their national privilege would assert God Himself to be their Father, He shows they have no spiritual character corresponding to this, and the devil was indeed their father: murderer as he was from the beginning, and not abiding in the truth, which just as such found no reception from them. Convict Him of sin they could not, and yet they would not hear what they could not confute. 5. They turn upon Him with a two-fold thrust in answer to His double charge. To the first, that they are no true children of Abraham, they retort that He is a Samaritan. To the second, that their father is the devil, that He is Himself possessed with a demon. The Lord quietly puts it away with the remark that they are dishonoring Him who seeks His Father’s glory, not His own. But His Father seeks and judges. Then closing His assurance, still held out to whosoever will, of freedom by the truth, He takes up and removes the shadow which the law left hanging over its disciples, with His strongest form of affirmation: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep My word, he shall never behold death.” They meet it only with a shout of derision, for they know no removal of death save one, and without exercise of conscience know not even the sting of it -what makes death death. Abraham is dead and the prophets: is He greater, this man who will not permit, to His very disciples, even a taste of death? But He answers: If He is but a man glorifying Himself, that glory is empty enough. Nay, but it is His Father glorifies Him, -He whom without true knowledge they call their God. On His part, if He denied the knowledge that He had of Him, He would be as false as they were now in professing that they knew Him. He did know Him, and kept His word. Then He looks back over the expectant ages awaiting Him whom now, being come, they refused, and affirms, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it and was glad.” “Thou art not fifty years old,” they reply; “and hast Thou seen Abraham?” His answer is the full disclosure of His glory, the claim of the incommunicable title of Deity for Himself: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham came into being, I AM.” It is Immanuel; but there is no knee bent to Him, no loving homage tendered. They take up stones to stone Him; and He, hiding Himself for the moment from their sacrilegious violence, passes out of the temple.