What Jesus Wrote on the Ground - John 7:53 - 8:11

One of the most familiar stories in the New Testament is about the woman caught in adultery. What a lot of people don't know is that many scholars do not consider this story to be authentic. I do. But I can't explain all the reasons in this post. Suffice it to say that there is some good textual evidence for its inclusion in John. Having shared that conviction, let me get to the issue that everyone is interested in, that is, what did Jesus wrote on the ground? In order to answer this we have to set the scene.

The Feast of Tabernacles had been going on several days and people had been living in makeshift shelters. A lot of adultery had undoubtedly taken place in these close living quarters. In this context, the Scribes and Pharisees brought a woman to Jesus as He is teaching the Temple. They claim that she had been caught in the very act of adultery and asked Jesus what they should do with her.

The text tells us that they were "testing" Jesus (v 6). They reminded Him that the penalty under the Law was stoning until dead. They also knew that the Romans did not allow this, and that ordinary Jews considered stoning for adultery to be way too excessive a penalty. The Jewish leaders believed that Jesus would not support the law of Moses in this situation, and so they could discredit Him as an impostor. If He was truly the Messiah He would uphold the Mosaic Law.

It is at this point that Jesus stoops down and writes on the ground. Historically, most Christians have taught and believed that He was writing out all the sins of the accusers. This is certainly possible, but I believe that He was simply writing, "You shall not bear a false report" from Exodus 23:1. You see this whole thing was a setup to discredit our Lord. Where was the man? The Law required the woman and man to be brought forward to be stoned (see Leviticus 20:10). The Jewish leaders were malicious in their intentions and not fulfilling all the requirements of the Law. They were as guilty of breaking the Law of Moses as the woman they brought before Jesus.

After Jesus says, "he who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her" (v 7), He writes on the ground again. This time I believe that He wrote out Exodus 23:7, which says, "keep far from a false charge". Why did He do this? Because when executing the penalty of stoning, the accuser had to throw the first stone and if sometime later it was determined that the charge was in some way false, the accuser was then to be stoned (see Deuteronomy 19:16-19). As result every potential accuser walked away one by one until the adulterous woman was completely alone. Then Jesus told her that He did not "condemn" her (v. 10), but He did tell her to "Go and sin no more" (v. 11).

The point of this story is that Jesus upheld the Law as the Son of God would always do. But He would not support anything that was not fully in accordance with the Law of God. This story is not about grace as many try to make it. It is about Jesus upholding God's Law. He did not condemn the woman because the Law was being perverted. But He also warned her to stop sinning because He is concerned about righteousness. Only Jesus could have handled this difficult situation so well!  Truly He is the Son of God!