St. John viii. 9.
Jesus said to her, Neither do I condemn thee; Go, and sin no more.
Every one understands the occasion of these words: The absolution of the woman taken in adultery, says an ancient writer, has been always famous in the church[148]: Indeed so famous, that some, who know but little of the other parts of the Gospel history, pretend to be well acquainted with this; from which they draw conclusions so favourable to their own loose practices, that others of stricter morals have been disposed to question its authenticity, and to expunge this obnoxious passage from the sacred books.
The attempt, indeed, has not succeeded. The obnoxious passage is unquestionably authentic. But what then shall we say to the narrative itself? How are we to expound it consistently with the known character of Jesus? and how are we to obviate the ill consequences which seem so naturally to flow from it?
These questions will be answered by considering attentively the nature and circumstances of the case: from which it will appear, that this decision of our Lord is founded on the highest wisdom; and, when seen in its true light, affords no countenance to the licentious glosses of one party, and needs give no alarm to the scrupulous fears and apprehensions of another.
The fact is related by the sacred historian in these words: “The Scribes and Pharisees brought to him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, they say to him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery in the very act. Now, Moses in the law commanded, that such should be stoned; but what sayest thou?”
Thus far we see there was no difficulty. A crime had been committed, and might be proved; and their law had appointed the punishment. Why then do the Scribes and Pharisees apply to Jesus, for his judgment in the case? The text tells us; for it follows immediately—“This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him.” They came to him then, not for any information about the nature of the crime, or of the punishment due to it; the crime had been distinctly specified in their law (the authority of which Jesus admitted, as well as they) and the sort of punishment had been distinctly specified, too: But they came with the insidious design of tempting him; that is, of drawing some answer from him, which might give them an occasion to accuse him, either to the people, or to the rulers of the Jewish state.
In what then did their temptation consist? Or, what crime was it, of which, by thus tempting him, they supposed they might have to accuse him to the Jews? The answer to this question will lead us into a proper view of our Lord’s conduct on this occasion, and will enable us to form a right judgment of the manner in which he disappointed the malice of his insidious tempters.
We find in the preceding chapter of St. John’s Gospel, that the Jews sought to kill him, ver. 1.; and that, being alarmed at the progress of his doctrine among the people, the Pharisees and chief priests had even sent their officers to take him by force, ver. 32. But this project failing in the execution, by the growing favour of the people towards him, and by the strange impression which the doctrine of Jesus had made on those officers themselves, they found it expedient to try other and more indirect methods.
For this purpose, having taken a woman in adultery, they supposed they had now obtained a certain method of accomplishing their designs against him. They therefore bring her to him, and say, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now, Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
They concluded, that his answer to this question must be such as would give them a sure hold of him. For either it would be, that the law of Moses was too severe; and then, they doubted not but he would fall a sacrifice to the zeal of the people themselves, from whose favour to him they had now the most dreadful apprehensions: or, if he justified this law of Moses, and encouraged the execution of it (and this conduct they had most reason to expect, from the known strictness of his life and doctrine, and from his professed reverence for the law), in that case, they would have to accuse him to the Jewish rulers, as taking to himself a civil and judicial character; or, rather to their Roman masters, as presuming to condemn to death an offender by his own proper authority; whereas it was not lawful for the Sanhedrim itself, but by express leave of the Roman governour, to put any man to death[149].
In short, either the people themselves would kill him on the spot, as a disparager and blasphemer of the law; or, he would be convicted of that capital crime, which their rulers wanted to fasten upon him, of making himself a king, and so incur the punishment of rebellion to the state.
Such being the profound artifice, as well as malice, of this plot, the situation of our Lord was very critical; and nothing but that divine wisdom, by which he spake, and which attended him in all conjunctures, could deliver him from it.
Let us see, then, what that wisdom suggested to him in his present perilous condition.
Instead of replying directly to their ensnaring question, “He stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heared them not.” His enemies, no doubt, considered this affected inattention as a poor subterfuge; or, rather, as an evident proof of his confusion, and inability to avoid the snare they had laid for him; and were ready to exult over him, as their certain prey, now fallen into their hands. They therefore repeat and press upon him their insulting question, urging him with much clamour to give them an immediate reply. “So when they continued asking him, as the historian proceeds, he lift up himself, and said to them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And, again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.”
The divinity of this answer can never be enough admired. He eluded by it, at once, the two opposite snares they had laid for him: he disconcerted all their hopes and triumphant expectations; and carried, at the same time, by the weight of this remonstrance, and the power which he gave to it, trouble, confusion and dismay into their affrighted consciences. Without speaking a word against the law, or taking to himself an authority which he had never claimed, and which did not belong to him, he turned their temptation on themselves; and instead of falling a victim to it, astonished them with the moral use he had made of it, and sent them away overwhelmed with shame, conviction, and self-contempt. For it follows, “They which heared [this reply] being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even to the last; and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.”
This was no time, we see, for declaring his sense of the law of Moses, or giving his assent to the execution of it; which, upon the least signification of his mind, had certainly followed from the people (such was their united zeal for the law, and reverence for his opinion). His present purpose and duty was to preserve himself from a captious and malicious question; but in such a manner as might consist with truth and innocence, and even with a tender concern for the moral state and condition of those questioners themselves.
No man will then expect, that, in such circumstances, he should expatiate, to the by-standers, on the heinous crime of adultery, objected to this unhappy woman: a point, concerning which they deserved not, from any virtuous indignation they had conceived against it, which they wanted not, from any ignorance they were under of its general nature, to be further satisfied or informed. They deserved, and they wanted to be made sensible of their own guilt and wickedness; and of this they derived from Jesus the fullest conviction. This was the sole purport of our Lord’s reply to them: any other had been unseasonable and improper; and therefore no man will now be surprized to find the issue of this remarkable conference in the mild dismission which he gives to the unhappy person, who had furnished the occasion of it.
“When Jesus had lift up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said to her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord: Jesus said to her, Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more.”
The story concludes in the very manner we should now expect from the preceding circumstances. The accusers of the woman had withdrawn themselves; being convicted in their own minds, by the divine energy of Christ’s reproof, of the very same crime, as some suppose, but certainly of some crime of equal malignity with that, which they had objected to this sinner. Their accusation had not been formed on their zeal for the honour of the law, or any antipathy they had conceived to the crime in question, but on the wicked purpose of oppressing an innocent man. When they failed of this end, they thought not of carrying the criminal before the proper judge, or of prosecuting the matter any further. To the question then which our Lord put to her, hath no man condemned thee, i. e. hath no man undertaken to see the sentence of the law carried into execution against thee? she answered, No man, Lord. Neither do I, continued Jesus, condemn thee: I, who am a private man, and have no authority to execute the law; I, who came not to judge the world, but to save the world, I presume not to pass the sentence of death upon thee. I leave this matter to thine accusers, and to the proper judge. But what my office of a divine instructor of mankind requires, that I am ready to perform towards thee. Let me admonish thee, then, of thy great wickedness in committing this act, and exhort thee to repentance and a better life for the future; Go, and sin no more!
Every thing here is so natural and so proper, so suitable to the circumstances of the case, and to the character and office of Jesus, that no shadow of blame can fall upon our Lord’s conduct; nor has any man of sense, who considers the history, the least reason to conclude that any countenance is hereby given to the horrid sin of adultery. The mistake (if it be purely a mistake) has arisen from the ambiguous sense of the words, I condemn thee not; which may either signify, I blame thee not, or I pass not the legal sentence of death upon thee. But they cannot be here taken in the former sense, because Christ immediately charges the woman with her guilt, and bids her sin no more; Nay, they can only be taken in the latter sense, because that was the sense in which her accusers had not condemned her; for otherwise, by bringing her to Jesus, and by their vehement accusation of her, they had sufficiently testified their sense of her crime. When Jesus therefore said, Neither do I condemn thee, he could only be understood to mean, “Neither do I take upon me to do that which thine accusers have omitted to do; that is, I do not condemn thee to be put to death; a sentence, which however thou mayest deserve by the law of Moses, I have no authority to pronounce against thee.”
It should further be observed, that although the turn here given by Jesus to this famous accusation be indeed favourable to the criminal (and it could not be otherwise, consistently with his own safety, or even duty) yet it insinuates nothing against the propriety of a legal prosecution, nor gives the least countenance to the magistrate to abate of his rigid execution of the law which is entrusted to him. The mixture of mercy and humanity in Christ’s decision is indeed very amiable and becoming in a private man; but had the question been, “Whether it were not fit to prosecute so great a crime in a legal and regular manner,” there is no reason to believe that his answer would have given any check to the course of public justice.
We see then from the whole narrative, and from this comment upon it, That here is no encouragement given to any man to think more slightly of the sin of adultery, than other passages of the Gospel, and the reason of the thing, authorize him to do. The sin is unquestionably of the deepest dye; is one of the most flagrant that men can commit in society; and is equally and uniformly condemned by nature itself and by the Christian morals. If, besides condemning, that is, expressing his abhorrence of the sin, as Jesus did, he further made an adulterous multitude sensible of their iniquity and savage inhumanity in calling for the sudden and tumultuary punishment of one, who had deserved no worse than themselves, this benefit was accessary and incidental to the circumstances of the story; and, while it gives one occasion to admire the address and lenity of our divine master, takes nothing from the enormity of the crime itself, or from the detestation which he had of it. In short, one cannot well conceive how Jesus could have done more in the case, or have expressed his displeasure at the crime more plainly, unless he had become a voluntary and officious informer against the criminal; which, considering the occasion and his own character, no man, I suppose, would think reasonable.
To conclude: if men would call to mind the purity and transcendant holiness of Christ’s character, as evidenced in the general tenour of his history, and considered withall, that never man spake as he spake, they could not suspect him of giving any quarter to vice; and might be sure, that, if what he said on any occasion, had the least appearance of looking that way, the presumption must be without grounds, and could only arise from their not weighing and considering his words, so replete with all wisdom, as well as goodness, with a proper attention. The case before us, we have seen, is a memorable instance of this kind: and let all readers of the Gospel be taught by it, that to understand the Scriptures, and to cavil at them, are different things. Let them be warned by this example, not to impute their own follies to the sacred text, which they must first misinterpret, before they can abuse: And, above all, let them take heed how they turn the Grace of God into licentiousness; that is, how they seek to justify to themselves, or even palliate, their own corruptions, by their loose and negligent, if not perverse, glosses on the word of God; on that WORD, by which they must stand or fall; and which, like the divine Author of it, will surely in the end be justified in all its sayings, and be clear when it is judged[150].