EVERYONE IS A LAW-BREAKER!
“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust. When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” —John 8:4-11
Politicians are quick to point out the faults of others while seeking to hide their own. They want to make the other guy look bad and all the while they probably have worse things in their own lives. How many times have we heard politicians drag up something in somebody else’s life from 20-30 or more years ago or even when a person was in their teens as they try to smear them? If we really understood who we are from God’s perspective we who live in “glass houses would not throw stones” at others.
So it was in the passage above as these people were trying to trap Jesus in how He responded. Oh, how they wanted to catch Him saying something wrong, but they did not know who they were dealing with and that He knew them more than they understood themselves.
They came to Jesus with a woman who had been “caught in the act of adultery” to see if He would align with their interpretation of Moses and have her stoned. He did not immediately answer them but “stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger.” They keep pressing Him for an answer and got something they did not expect. Jesus said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” The older guys left first. They realized what He was saying. They had not keep Moses’ Law either. It took the younger guys a bit longer, but they left as well with that understanding. How could Law-breakers they cast stones at one who broke the Law?
The point Jesus was making was that the one who broke one part of the Law of Moses had broken it all as mention in James 2:10. True, the woman had broken the Law of Moses, but so had everyone else that had gathered to condemn her. In doing so Jesus also reminded them that they too were guilty of breaking the Law of Moses. They who had planks in their own eye wanted to be quick to point out the speck in someone else’s life. Jesus said, “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?” If they went ahead and stone the woman then they would also have to stone themselves!
Dear Father, please help me to be wise as I seek to encourage others. May I look at my own life and make sure that I have all known sinned confessed to You before trying to help someone else who may be in sin. Oh Holy Spirit, please reveal things in my own life that I need to get right and do so before I seek to guide others in what is right. May this be so in the authority of the Lord Jesus.