He Who Is Without Sin

In the 8th chapter of the Gospel of John, the Pharisees brought a woman to Jesus and threw her on the ground at His feet. They told Jesus they had caught the woman in the act of adultery and the Law demanded she be stoned for her sin. They asked Jesus what he had to say about that situation. Now, first, there's a little bit of that section of the Law the Pharisees failed to mention: the Law said the woman and the man she was with were to both be stoned to death. Where was the man in this instance? Why was he not brought with the woman to be condemned by Jesus?

The Pharisees were a hypocritical bunch of self-righteous men who wanted others to live the perfection of the law while they, themselves, wanted to be exempt from the parts of the Law they didn't want to abide by. Sounds kinda similar to a lot of Believers today. They want others to live perfect lives without sin and when they see someone who is a sinner committing sin they want to condemn them. Lock them away or something. But they want to outlaw what they consider to be sin to make the whole nation behave as they believe Believers should behave. But, in this instance, why did they leave the man who was caught in adultery out? Was it someone they knew? Was it someone they protected in order to receive some special treatment later on? We will never know.

Jesus wrote something on the ground, which was not revealed in the Gospel, maybe it was the man's name who wasn't brought along, but He rose and told the Pharisees that whichever one was without sin was to cast the first stone. Challenged in that way every single one of her accusers walked away. Now, today's Believers want to point out that Jesus told her to go and sin no more. Okay, yes, Jesus taught us to live our lives sin free, but can any single one of us truly live even one day without committing sin? I suppose somewhere there's someone who might be able to go 24 hours without sinning, but it's highly unlikely. The point of this passage of scripture is not the statement, "go and sin no more." The point of this passage is "let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

Any person who is without sin has the right to condemn sin. Does that give that person the right to stone someone to death? I don't think it does. Because there was One there who had the right to throw stones, yet He showed grace and mercy and love to the woman instead of condemnation. So, as Believers when we see someone sinning we are not to condemn them and point out their sin, we are to show love, grace and mercy to them, just as it has been and continues to be shown to us by God, Himself. What we receive we are to give. We can only give love, grace and mercy to others because we receive from God.

People sin. It's a fact of life. We sin. Another fact of life. Condemning someone's sin is different from condemning the sinner. Making laws to punish someone for committing sin is condemning the sinner, not the sin. The law cannot save a soul. It's an impossibility. The only thing that can save a soul is Jesus Christ by His life, death and resurrection. If He chose to offer love, grace and mercy to a sinner caught in sin, how can we do anything less that He did?