No Condemnation

Who has believed our message? and to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed? For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he has no form nor comeliness; and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised, and rejected by men; a man of suffering, and acquainted with disease: and as one from whom men hide their face he was despised; and we didn't respect him. Surely he has borne our sickness, and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he didn't open his mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is mute, so he didn't open his mouth. (Isaiah 53:1-7)

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman taken in adultery. Having set her in the midst, they told him, "Teacher, we found this woman in adultery, in the very act. Now in our law, Moses commanded us to stone such. What then do you say about her?" They said this testing him, that they might have something to accuse him of.

But Jesus stooped down, and wrote on the ground with his finger as though he did not hear. But when they continued asking him, he looked up and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone at her." Again he stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground. They, when they heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning from the oldest, even to the last. Jesus was left alone with the woman where she was, in the middle. Jesus, standing up, saw her and said, "Woman, where are your accusers? Did no one condemn you?" She said, "No one, Lord." Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go your way. From now on, sin no more." (John 8:3-11)

What did Jesus write on the dust of the temple floor? Was it the sins of each man there causing them to feel condemned and afraid of being exposed as so many people like to imagine?

[Love] is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, [love] keeps no record of wrongs.

(1 Corinthians 13:5 NIV)

Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:17 NRSV)

You judge according to the flesh. I judge no one. (John 8:15)

Would it be like Jesus to condemn anyone as a means of compelling them to conform to His wishes?

Therefore you are without excuse, O man, whoever you are who judge. For in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you who judge practice the same things. We know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. (Romans 2:1-2)

Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God; (Romans 2:4-5)

Judging and condemning people has never induced righteousness in anyone. God does not rely on condemning or guilt-tripping us but relies on methods of kindness, goodness and love. While it is true that He often has to give us warnings of what will happen if we continue in evil, He is never the source of the effects of evil that come into our lives. God will not resort to using Satan's methods of compulsion but will overcome evil through the attraction of His goodness alone.

And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. (John 12:32)

So what might Jesus have written in the dust on that fateful day by which He rescued a humiliated, terrified woman from certain death from stoning?

Yahweh, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be disappointed. Those who depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken Yahweh, the spring of living waters. (Jeremiah 17:13)

Remember that these men who had arranged for this woman to be caught in this situation in the first place, were not only experts in the law of Moses, they were likely complicit in her sin themselves by the way they had arranged the whole situation from the start. Yet we often forget that Jesus longed to win their hearts with His love just as much as He wanted to save this woman's life.

We have a hard time embracing the perspective of Jesus in such situations because it is so easy for us to feel animosity toward people we view as deserving to be exposed for their hypocrisy. Yet in believing Jesus should condemn these men for setting up this woman as bait to discredit and denounce Him, we actually reveal that we are also infected with a similar spirit of condemnation as they had that causes us to despise them. That is the nature of all temptation, for every temptation is an enticement to reflect the very spirit being displayed towards us by others that triggers in us resentment or desire to retaliate.

Let's look at a few other details in this story that have fascinating implications.

Jesus stooped down, and wrote on the ground with his finger...

First of all, instead of 'standing up to these hypocrites' and calling them out for their blatant disregard of the very laws they pretended to honor, Jesus chose to humble Himself by stooping down before them. At first they may have imagined He might be looking for a way to escape the trap they set for Him. His silence may have appeared to indicate they had finally found a way to stump Him and they didn't want to lose it. Thinking He was simply doodling on the ground to waste time to avoid their carefully crafted scheme to discredit Him, they moved in closer to press their question even more incessantly, sensing they were about to score a decisive victory to destroy His influence with the people. Growing bolder they demanded He answer them immediately and quit avoiding their challenge. But Jesus was acting as if He were paying no attention to them while quietly but intently tracing words in the pavement dust.

They also who seek after my life lay snares. Those who seek my hurt speak mischievous things, and meditate deceits all day long. But I, as a deaf man, don't hear. I am as a mute man who doesn't open his mouth. Yes, I am as a man who doesn't hear, in whose mouth are no reproofs. (Psalms 38:12-14)

Who was this Jesus writing on the ground with His finger? Was He not the very same one who centuries earlier used His finger to write His Law for the entire planet on tablets of stone, one of the very laws these mere humans now demanded He enforce without mercy against a fellow sinner?

He gave to Moses, when he finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, stone tablets, written with God's finger. (Exodus 31:18)

One more thing to consider in this interesting phrase that John used to describe what Jesus did is where Jesus was writing. What was the medium on which He wrote words so powerful it caused every accuser to slink away in fear and guilt, defeated in their purpose to shame Jesus and kill a woman and possibly also Jesus with their schemes?

Jesus was writing in dust laying on the stone pavement of the temple floor. What is significant about dirt or dust in Scripture?

Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (Genesis 2:7)

By the sweat of your face will you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return. (Genesis 3:19)

If Jesus was writing with His finger, the same finger used to write His original words of the Law on tablets of stone He gave to Moses to start with; and if Jesus had originally breathed His own breath of life into the dust He shaped into the form of the first human making it come alive and thrive in the love of the Creator, then what might it mean for Jesus to again use His same finger to write what was on His mind in dust, only this time with living humans all around Him vying to control what people should believe about their Creator?

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Yahweh: I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people: (Jeremiah 31:33)

Jesus loves every person equally and passionately. He is not partial in the slightest to anyone, no matter how much animosity they may feel towards Him, for every person is His child and He longs to reconcile all to Himself and His Father. The only thing preventing His will from being fulfilled is our choice of how we will react to His overtures to win our trust and admiration for God's heart.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God didn't send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him. (John 3:16-17)