John 8

     8:1-11.  Though this passage is missing from most of the old mss. (margin), most everyone agrees that it belongs in the Bible, and it seems to me to be a perfect introduction to this chapter.  The issue throughout is judgment: judging the woman; judging Jesus; judging if, when, and how Jesus will judge.

     8:6.  They have condemned Jesus already in their hearts.  The woman is their trap to accuse him.  If he were to agree with the Law (Dt.22:22), they would accuse him of preaching sedition to Roman sovereignty, since the Jews were not allowed to put anyone to death.  If he disagreed with Moses, they would condemn him for that.  Yet they were the ones who ignored Moses’ law.  The witnesses to her adultery (4) were to cast the first stone.  Why didn’t they?  The man caught with her was also to be stoned.  Where was he?  Those who had let him go were not without sin.  Thus Jesus ignores their question by writing on the ground.

     It is futile to speculate about what he wrote.   C.S.Lewis says that it indicates that this is a true eyewitness account, because a made-up story would never have included such an irrelevancy.   The eyewitness reported it, because he saw it, and for no other reason.

     8:11 shows Jesus doing what justice cannot do apart from his payment on the cross.  He extends unmerited grace.  Before the holiness of God, no forgiveness comes to any sinner apart from an appeal to the redemption found here.  This is no cheap dismissal of the law, but an infinitely propitious satisfaction of its demands.  Do not presume upon it.  Go and sin no more.

     8:12-59.  Here Jesus gradually brings into clearer focus his radical claim to be the divine Son of the heavenly Father.

     In Mere Christianity, C.S.Lewis says that the one thing you cannot do with Jesus is praise him as a great moral teacher, but dismiss his claims that he is God.  “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell.  You must make your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.  You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.  But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher.  He has not left that open to us.  He did not intend to.”

     Nowhere is the truth of this seen more clearly than in this chapter.  Jesus makes outrageous claims about himself, and the Pharisees immediately challenge him (12-13), just as they had done before (cf.5:36ff).  The law demands that every word be confirmed by two or three witnesses (17).  As he had done before, he reminds them of his Father’s testimony.  The Father’s word and works through him are his witness (18).

     Gradually Jesus makes it unmistakable that he is indeed claiming to be one with the heavenly Father, even to a three-fold use of the sacred divine name, “I AM” (24, 28, 58; cf.Ex.3:14.  Also, cf.13:13, 19).

     8:30-47.  The mere belief of 30-31 proves not to be the saving faith of Abraham (39).  The test of a true son of Abraham is perseverance in obedience (32-35; cf. Paul’s use of Gen.21:10 in Gal.4:21-5:1).  Those who believe God are Abraham’s children (39; cf.Ro.4:3; 9:6-8).

     Satan and his children cannot hear God’s word (43-44).  This is not because they have no free will, but because they do, and it is a will corrupted by a nature which chooses the lie over the truth, and murder over the word of life.

     Jesus’ claim not only to offer eternal life through his word (51), but to actually be the eternal God himself (58), finally pushes them to try to stone him (59, cf.37,40).  Can we sit in judgment of them?  As Lewis says, “…what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.” (ibid.).