ADULTERY EXPOSED; FORGIVEN; CLEANSED. GOD’S HATRED John 8.

The immoral, religious climate of Jerusalem was the background for the testing of the Lord Jesus.  Sexual impurity and religious unfaithfulness were linked.

The chief priests and Pharisees rebuked the officers sent to arrest Jesus, ‘Why have you not brought Him?  They had  commanded them to arrest the Son of God. ‘Never Man spoke like this man’, they excused themselves. ( 7:46)  The common people saw His majestic life, and that no person compared with the Son of God.  Nor ever could.

The Pharisees bitterly fought back, ‘Are you also deceived?’  Remarkably the devil  had cheated the religious leaders, but they were not aware of their blindness. ‘The god of this world had blinded the minds of them, who believed not, lest the light of the gospel of  the glory of Christ, the image of God,  should shine unto them’ ( 2 Cor 4:4 )

The rulers justified themselves, ‘asking ‘Have any of the rulers of the Pharisees believed on Him?’ The religious leaders had committed spiritual adultery, deserting their Lord and twisting the scriptures out of recognition.  With evil intentions, they claimed, ‘ This crowd or rabble, that does not know the law is accursed.’ (v49) Our Lord exposed their perverted minds, while the ‘common people followed Him gladly’.

Nicodemus boldly defended the ONE, to whom he came by night with earnest searching.   As a converted Pharisee, he contended,’ Does our law judge a man before it hears him , and knows what he is doing.’ ( v51)  No one has come from the presence of the Son of God to deny His eternal nature.  Nicodemus could not.  Nor should we.

The Pharisees stung as they rebuked the senior Nicodemus, ‘ Are you also from Galilee? Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee.’  They offended with their prophetic quotes. Multiplied prophecies from the Old Testament confirmed the coming and ministry of the Messiah, and should have convinced even the blind followers that He was the Son of God.  Their spiritual vision was impaired with stony cataracts.

They sought relief at nightfall as ‘ Everyone went to his own house’. (v52 ) Food, drink and sleep filled their lives; while they escaped the challenge of the Son of God.

‘But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives’.  Our beloved Lord companioned with His heavenly Father in the quietness of the mountain side.  What momentous things they discussed; His teaching, sacrifice, resurrection, ascension to glory. No human heard that sweet fellowship, no eye observed the Son of the living God prostrate before His Father.

The Mount of Olives spoke of the crushed fruit ( His calvary affliction ) yielding the anointing oil, symbol of the Holy Spirit, who was given after Jesus had been glorified.

Then Jesus showed His rich devotional life, ‘Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him : and He sat down and taught them.’ (8:2)

Our Lord is our example, devoting the early morning to the study and teaching of God’s Word.  During a medical and nursing conference at Tana Toraja, in Sulawesi, Indonesia, ( now threatened by extremist religious followers ),I woke each morning at 4.30 with the singing of glorious hymns.  Of course in the Indonesian language.  Who would dare wake the guests of a **** hotel with singing at such an unearthly hour. They practised early rising, and devout bible study before manning the hotel.  This practice challenged me and chastened many other believers as we saw their deep love for our Lord.  Truly, 80% of the population were believers in our Saviour. 

When the crowds knew that their Lord had come, they sought teaching of eternal truths.  Would God that we longed for the word despite our present material world.

The scribes and Pharisees reappear.  This time in a legalistic and callous challenge to the Son of God. ‘They brought to Him a woman caught in adultery, and they set her in the midst. ‘ Poor woman! They had dragged her from her immoral lair, inadequately covered with a flimsy gown, her hair dishevelled, with the smell of her seductive perfume still on her. They shamed and degraded her, as they exposed her wayward life.  But what of her partner?  Adultery demands two.  Where was the man who had sought her ‘favour’?  Did a scribe or Pharisee trap her, seeking paid sexual satisfaction, while scheming to drag her into the temple.  How degraded religious man can become!

‘The Lord said, ‘I have loved righteousness, and hated iniquity’ ( spiritual adultery). Our Lord was bruised in His spirit as the infamous plot unfolded.  They did not seek to release this woman from her sexual slavery, nor to offer her a life of purity, with the blessing of home life, caring for a husband and bearing children.  She was only a pawn.

Can you imagine her embarrassment when ‘they set her in the midst.’ That’s where the Son of God should have been; however, they put a degraded, fallen woman in that central place.  She was in the spotlight among the morning bible class which the Lord had earlier taught. Only when we give Lord Jesus His central place in our lives do we enjoy the eternal riches He brings.  She would have hated her depraved, immoral life.

They did not call Him ’Lord’, for you can only do so when filled with the Holy Spirit.

They were filled with the devilish spirit of criticism and rejection of God’s Son.  They addressed Him as ‘Teacher’. Gloating, they prosecuted her, ‘The woman was caught in adultery, in the very act.’ ( v4)   Did she lift her eyes to catch a glimpse of the Saviour’s gentle face, and His searing hatred of hypocrisy of the religious rulers.  If so, her heart would have been comforted with the tender response in His all-searching eyes.  WE must remember that our Lord hated  adultery, a sin against God and family, as the word of God stated frequently.  However, He loved the fallen sinner, and sought to release, pardon, relieve the guilt, purify and rebuild the wasted life.

In exodus 20 God’s royal law to Moses stated, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ In 1 Corinthians 6: 13, we read, ‘Now the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body.’ Paul warned in Romans 1:29’ They were filled with all unrighteousness and sexual immorality.’ In the Galatian letter 5:19, Paul showed ‘the works of the flesh are adultery ( sexual relationship among married outside of wedlock) , fornication ( sexual oneness among the unmarried )‘, contrasting it with the ‘fruit of the Spirit’.  Our Lord has not changed His  attitude to sexual impurity  in a permissive day. 

They thundered, ‘Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do you say?’ (v5) Their voices were as brutal and brittle as their stony hearts.  Did the Lord remember Joseph, his foster father’s concern for Mary, Jesus’ mother, who faced death by stoning for her pregnancy from the Holy Spirit? She was espoused to Joseph , but not married at the time of the miraculous conception of Jesus, the Son of God, in her womb.  Mary knew she faced death by stoning. She accepted God’s word.

The scribes and Pharisees’ motives were wretched.  They set a trap for the eternal One. ‘ This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him’.  They belonged to the devil, who had tempted the Lord Jesus in the early part of His ministry, when He fasted 40 days and nights in the desert.  Christ won the battle.

The devil tried again through religious leaders, hoping to gain some advantage over the One, in whom dwelt all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.  They accused the helpless woman in her sin, and hoped to accuse the Son of God if He dared to challenge Moses’ Ten commandments. Inevitably, He would triumph.  

This study is continued in the second instalment. Tell your Pastor or friend of the web site.  Please pray for all who read these bible studies.