God's Questions

Straightening up, Jesus said to her, "Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?" (John 8:10)

As I read again these words this morning I was reminded of similar words I had heard God speak to others. In fact, the more I thought about it the more I began to realize something quite significant here. One thing that I have learned over the past few years as God has been leading me into a better understanding of His truth is that the condition of my spirit and my relationship with Him is the real issue that He is most concerned about, far beyond the actions, the mistakes, the sins or the amount of factual truth I may have acquired intellectually.

I learned years ago that the people I grew up with and who trained me in religious beliefs had a number of serious misunderstandings when it came to knowing God and being saved. One of those was their insistence that God was very keen on obedience as relative to my behavior and that it was extremely important above all else to know the right doctrines from the Bible. Many of them believed that any notion of having an intimate relationship with God, if valid at all, would only come as a result of years of tireless effort of eliminating sin from my life so that God might finally approve of me and accept me into closer fellowship with Him some time in the future.

But this basic training for me, which millions of others suffer from all over the world who even come from very different cultures and religions, deformed my inner opinions and feelings about God so badly that about all I ended up with were a lot of fears about God (which was their primary intent to start with) with almost no capacity to actually love Him, even though I was supposed to do that somehow in spite of His demanding nature. Unquestioning obedience, the external variety particularly, was the main focus of my religious training along with a lot of memorization of proof texts to support predigested suppositions and systems of doctrine that others had already determined were what I was supposed to believe in order to be saved. But in all of this a personal relationship with a personal God at the heart level was totally ignored and I spent most of my life living in fear of Him. But this only resulted in stirring up rebellion in my heart against the tyranny which this picture of God represented to me.

That is one reason that this story was not dwelt on too much in my religious training. It was nice and it had its place for people who had fallen into sexual sin for inducing them to return to a life of obedience to God. But those around me seemed to be cautious about making too much of the kindness and compassion and instant forgiveness of Jesus and focused more on His ending words instructing this woman to go and quite sinning.

But thankfully over the past few decades God has been introducing Himself to my heart and mind and has been seriously challenging all these assumptions about Him and uprooting many of them. It has been a disturbing process, a painful process at times but a glorious one as the real truth about God's love and the way He feels toward sinners has become more clear to my heart. The fear has been slowly melting away over the years now, though there seems to still remain a lot of frozen areas left to conquer. But as I spend time meditating on His Word and listening carefully to insights and impressions and allow His Spirit to reveal more and more of the consistent realities of heaven to my mind, I become drawn to want to live constantly in this new dimension, this relationship of intimacy with a God who really is personally interested in drawing me into connection with His heart without condemnation.

As I ponder some of the interactions that are recorded in the Scriptures between heaven and humans, I realize that many if not all of them are relationship-based encounters and dialogs. God asks what seems to be silly questions given that He already knows all answers. But the reason He asks these kinds of questions is not to gain information for Himself like we do, but to offer us opportunities to enter into closer fellowship with Him, especially when our relationship has been broken or is seriously in trouble.

Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" He said, "I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself." (Genesis 3:9-10)

Then the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? (Genesis 4:6)

He said, "Hagar, Sarai's maid, where have you come from and where are you going?" And she said, "I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai." (Genesis 16:8)

Then he came there to a cave and lodged there; and behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" He said, "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars and killed Your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away." (1 Kings 19:9-10)

Then the Lord said to Moses, "Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward." (Exodus 14:15)

Why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin. (Matthew 6:28)

He said to them, "Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?" Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm. (Matthew 8:26)

And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, "Why are you thinking evil in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, and walk'?" (Matthew 9:4-5)

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)

And He said to him, "Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments." (Matthew 19:17)

But Jesus perceived their malice, and said, "Why are you testing Me, you hypocrites?" (Matthew 22:18)

[Jesus] said to them, "Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not enter into temptation." (Luke 22:46)

And He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?" (Luke 24:38)

And they said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him." (John 20:13)

Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" And he said, "Who are You, Lord?" Then the Lord said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads." (Acts 9:4-5 NKJV)

And when we had all gone down on the earth, a voice came to me, saying in the Hebrew language, Saul, Saul, why are you attacking me so cruelly? It is hard for you to go against the impulse which is driving you. (Acts 26:14 BBE)

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.

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)

He Stooped Down

Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. (John 8:8)

I want to take a look at this from different people's perspective in this story.

It may have likely appeared to the woman that Jesus was doing nothing for her benefit. It looked like He was just dawdling in the dirt to kill time while the accusations of her tormentors went on unabated bringing her ever closer to her painful demise.

To the accusers who had dragged her in it appeared that Jesus was ignoring their demands for a judgment of condemnation against this woman. They were likely encouraged by His apparent stalling that they had finally found the trap question that He couldn't escape, that He was simply trying to ignore their scheme to expose Him as a traitor of the law of Moses and ruin His reputation with the public. In their belief that they had finally caught Him in a double bind, just as they had managed to catch this woman that He loved in such a way as to totally humiliate and destroy her, they pushed their question even harder in growing anticipation of how soon they would be able to stone Him along with the woman. They were sure they would soon be able to eliminate two of the people who were causing them the most embarrassment and ruining their own influence with the common people.

The rest of the onlookers also were likely puzzled by Jesus' behavior. They may have had mixed feelings as well about why He was pushing dust around with His finger. But evidently either they were not standing close enough to make out what He was writing or most of them may have been illiterate to make out what He was writing. But I am certain that their curiosity must have been heightened as they waited in suspenseful anticipation of how this 'sting operation' was going to play out in front of everyone.

The text makes it very clear that this was fully intended to be as public as possible. It states twice that they were in the center. The words of the court are added by the translators so we cannot be totally certain that this is where it all took place. However, the word center is the main point made here indicating that what was taking place was the main attraction and was as centrally located as possible so as to amplify the effect of what the Jewish leaders wanted to accomplish.

But in trying to trap God into being humiliated and judged by human traditions, rules and interpretations of God's laws, these men had made a mistake. It seems so silly from heaven's point of view for mere humans to think that their wisdom could outsmart God. These men, like most of us today still do, relied mostly on human perspectives of justice based on our 'fear and punishment' models designed to control the behavior of others. Heaven's justice system is so different than ours that we seldom only catch a hint of how things really are from that perspective, and when we do we find it both confusing and even enraging based on what we have been taught to value most.

But in setting up Jesus to betray Himself into their hands, they actually ended up setting up the perfect trap to fall into themselves. Jesus could have maximized the effect of embarrassing them publicly just as they were attempting to do to Him, however, true to heaven's ways of seeking to save all instead of pushing any away from God, Jesus dealt just as kindly and discreetly with these hypocrites and self-righteous sinners just as delicately as He handled the woman caught in adultery. By writing out a list of the accuser's own heinous sins in the dust where only they could read them instead of publicly exposing them for all to scorn, Jesus sought to reach their hearts with His kindness so as to draw them to repentance if at all possible.

And how did Jesus accomplish this? By the same means that He does everything to bring about our reconciliation with God. He stooped down. When He was attacked, accused, humiliated, shamed and tested, He simply humbled Himself. This is made clear in Philippians 2 where it describes the whole mission strategy of Jesus to redeem fallen humanity. All the way from the throne of God to suffering the most shameful and painful death more hideous than any human being has ever experienced, Jesus humbled Himself to accomplish our salvation, the restoration of our trust in our heavenly Father. He stooped down from the throne, He stooped down as a man and He kept stooping down in each situation for the purpose of revealing the truth about how God feels about sinners and how much God wants us to be reunited with Him in trust and love and confidence.

By stooping down He positions Himself strategically to be able to lift us up from beneath because we are powerless to lift ourselves out of the deep deceptions about reality and about God's attitudes toward us that keep us blinded and afraid of Him. By His revelations of how God really feels about us He lifts our minds out of the gutters and filth of lies about God that blanket the whole earth. But showing us the Father Jesus establishes a human model by which we can begin to perceive the real truth about how much God really loves us and wants us back into full fellowship with Himself. Jesus was sent to save all who would allow Him to lift them out of the quagmire of lies about God and about ourselves and to redeem us from the trap of sin in which we are stuck.

Jesus stoops down so that we may stand up.