Groundless Accusations

They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. (John 8:6)

I find this interesting. It occurs to me that if one thing is remembered about the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders relative to Jesus it was that they were constantly accusing Him.

So, if they accused Him regularly and yet this verse says that they were trying to create grounds for accusing Him, it would seem to me that the logical conclusion is that their accusations were usually groundless. Although they spent a great deal of their time accusing Jesus of all sorts of things trying to ruin His reputation and get Him into trouble, to discredit His ministry and finally to have Him publicly shamed, humiliated and executed so as to get Him out of their lives – all of this was done without any real legitimate reasons.

Groundless accusations.

I suppose I never do that now, do I?

And yet I find myself convicted on a regular basis that the assumptions I have about others too often turn out to be groundless, like my assumptions about other people's motives or thoughts. But still I so often feel like justifying myself and ignoring the fact that my ideas about others are proven wrong repeatedly, and yet I want to maintain confidence in my ability to judge others while at the same time resenting every time someone else does the same thing to me.

But sometimes when a person becomes so bitter about being being wrong about other's motives and insists that they are right despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, they resort to setting up situations, manipulating circumstances to arrange things in such a way as to make it appear that they are right in order to justify their judgments and accusations rather than to admit that they might be wrong. They will resort to setting up what amounts to 'sting operations', traps to induce someone into doing something that can be construed to be wrong all in order to vindicate their own accusations rather than allow that they may be the one in the wrong themselves.

Of course, all of this is much easier to see in other people than it is to see in myself. Faults are so much easier to spot in others than to admit to in myself. Yet I am reminded of that saying that I find all too often so true, “If you spot it, you got it.”

Actually I have found that saying to be more useful for me when I am willing to be honest. For if I am really serious about growing and maturing instead of evading responsibility and attempting to vindicate myself, then whenever something really irritates me inside I can realize a golden opportunity to identify a fault in myself that has been hiding for many years. Self-deception is my worst enemy and is the reason that it is so hard to move out of the rut that keeps me stuck spiritually and emotionally.

That is why James speaks of trials as something to get excited about rather than something to bemoan. Because trials are times when the triggers linked to deep lies in my soul that have been hiding out and causing me endless trouble for so many years make those lies the most vulnerable to becoming exposed. If I allow them to truly get exposed and can then see them for what they really are instead of continuing to protect, harbor or defend them deep inside, then I can invite God to address those lies more consciously and eliminate them with truth which is what I really want to happen in my life.

But when I refuse to take responsibility for the lies I believe deep inside – lies about God, lies about myself, lies about others – then the natural tendency whenever circumstances or relationships expose me by triggering these lies is to try to make others look like the problem instead of myself. And that is where I am in serious danger of engaging in groundless accusations just as these pious religious people long ago found themselves doing repeatedly as they became exposed by the presence of the only perfect love ever seen on this earth.

Sin denies the very existence of selfless love, therefore it has no alternative but to attempt to vindicate its lies by accusing those who love this way with base and selfish motives. Whenever they saw Jesus showing compassion, forgiveness and love that exposed their harsh, selfish, judgmental attitudes in their attempts to look holy through condemning others, the contrast made them so uncomfortable that in trying to defend their self-piety they felt compelled to condemn the Son of God Himself and try to accuse Him of being the problem.

But that is the very nature of sin. The originator of sin started out his career doing that very thing from the beginning. He began to circulate accusations against God, groundless accusations that he insisted were true because he 'had inside information' to prove them. Then when others began to doubt his insinuations about God he would arrange circumstances in such a way or twist things in such as light as to create doubt about God's goodness in the minds of others, seeking to keep attention away from his own faulty reasoning. And all who share in his pride and remain infected with his lies will follow in his footsteps seeking to protect their own claims and maintain the pride that props them up to feel valuable.

It really all comes back to where we choose to receive our sense of value and identity. If we refuse to embrace the things that God says about us while allowing our fallen nature to interpret situations and messages about who we are inside, then we will inevitably find ourselves joining in the blame game of the great accuser of the brethren who accuses them day and night. By implication we end up accusing God of injustice, unfairness and all sorts of other groundless accusations. Because we are born in this world of deception and have grown up full of these lies ourselves, we share the spirit of assuming many of these things are true and are ready to participate in the accusing spirit because it is all we have known all our lives.

God is seeking to draw everyone possible away from believing in the lies of Satan if they are willing to listen to the real truth about Himself in the testimony of His Son and the testimony of those who are filled with His Son. Truth will always prevail over groundless accusations just as it did so spectacularly in this story to the amazement of all who watched it, particularly the woman who's life was on the line. God is not just in the business of salvaging His own reputation but is even more keen to protect and restore all who respond to His love to draw them into a life-giving, loving, interactive relationship with His own heart.

Sin always resorts to accusations. But God in His love does not use that tactic to achieve His purposes of truth. And all those who chose to represent God must learn to live the same way. Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!" (Jude 1:9 NKJV) Rather than launch into exposing the faults of others, the only effective way to handle sin is to defer to God's ways of dealing with sin, not to try to use accusations to compare ourselves with others to make ourselves look better by contrast.

We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise. (2 Corinthians 10:12 NIV)