Condemning or Accusing?

Straightening up, Jesus said to her, "Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more." (John 8:10-11)

As I meditated on these verses this morning I noticed several things. I think it might be enlightening to look throughout the Bible to see what happens in connection with God's posture. In this story it seems that whenever Jesus stoops down that He is dealing with sin, taking the sins of others onto Himself. But when He straightens up good things begin to emerge.

Another thing I see here is in the question Jesus asked this woman. Did no one condemn you? Jesus very often dealt with people by asking them questions rather than simply telling them facts like we often tend to do. In this case I find it helpful to try to put myself into the mind and emotions of this woman as much as possible so as to parallel what sequence of feelings Jesus took her through and see the effect it might have had on her soul. In doing so it would seem that the way Jesus dealt with her sin and her shame might make a deeper impact on my own sin and shame.

As I thought about this question that He asked her and reflected on what had just transpired, it occurred to me that in our use of the word condemn we might have answered differently. I have noticed that many times when people say bad things about us or even challenge our beliefs sometimes that we claim that they are condemning us. We toss this term around too loosely I suspect, often using it as a defense to shield ourselves trying to keep people from making us feel uncomfortable. And in the case of this woman it would certainly seem that those religious leaders claiming publicly that she had just been 'discovered' having sex with someone illicitly and deserved to die might qualify as condemnation.

But interestingly the answer this woman gave to Jesus seems to distinguish between real condemnation and just accusations. Although these men had certainly set her up quite likely and had stopped at nothing to humiliate and shame her openly, none of this fell under the category of being condemned. The woman stated clearly that no one had condemned her which strongly implies that condemnation must be more limited in its true scope than what we often imply in our use of it.

In her case clearly, condemnation would seem to have occurred if these men had been able to carry out their desires to punish her by public stoning. Of course their intent was far from just stopping at that, for what they really wanted was to stop Jesus from spreading all His contagious ideas about God and forgiveness and love among the people that was seriously undermining their own control over people's hearts and minds. Jesus' ideas about God and how He related to sinners was such a dangerous threat to their whole carefully constructed system of religion and keeping order in society that they were becoming desperate in their attempts to stop Him from doing further damage to their credibility. What they really longed to do was to have Jesus eliminated using any method possible, but preferably in a way that would appear to justify their system of legalism.

It is not totally clear to me yet what the difference between condemnation and accusation is, but from this story I feel I need to become more aware and to limit my use of this word so loosely as I may have done in the past. Using this story as a measurement for the true meaning of this word I am starting to see that accusations are not the same thing as condemnation. While these men certainly made this woman feel bad and said some very shaming things about her to ruin her already tattered reputation even further, evidently all of those things did not qualify as fitting under the category of condemnation. They were just accusations, and accusing is the primary activity of Satan whose very name means 'the accuser'. And while it was factually true what they said about this woman, from God's perspective her faults were not the central issue at stake anyway as far as Jesus was concerned.

And that is where I think possibly the more important lesson is here for me. As I was explaining to a close friend last night, there is a parallel reality all around us that is far more real and more important than most of what we perceive as real and are familiar with ourselves. This greater and very different reality is the one into which all of heaven is trying to draw us, but the process is made much more difficult because of our penchant for wanting to interpret everything from our perspective of reality rather than allowing God to introduce us and train us to live in His reality.

Clues and hints abound all around us, but our filters are strong in our culture, our religious training and everything else in this world designed to keep us away from awareness of this far superior reality. When unexpected things happen or people say or do things to us that simply don't seem to make much sense but still seem important, sometimes it is because they are conveying messages to us from the other reality that simply find no plausible place in our perceptions of reality. But as we allow God to transform our minds and hearts to view life more from His perspective these things will become more and more 'normal' and we will not be so baffled or surprised or confused by them.

I am starting to see this pattern in the record of Jesus many times. Things He talked about and the way He explained life was so often from the context of that other reality that we are in constant danger of explaining away the most powerful insights because we insist on interpreting everything using our own basis of reality which precludes anything outside of it. But if we would lay down our resistance to being taught and become like little children willing and eager to learn a whole new system of perceiving things, we could begin to actually understand far more than the supposed wisest people living on this earth. For even the lowest, simplest, most foolish things of God are far beyond the greatest wisdom of the smartest people living stuck in the reality that we have been brought up to believe.

So, why is it significant to discern between what is just accusations and what is actually condemnation? That seems to be a question I need to ponder and see what God may have to add to this as I remain open to listen and learn.