Unit 1: Love Completes, Law Falls Short
Key Verse:
John 8:10-11a NLT
10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
11 “No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I…
And there I was with a rock in my hand. On Sukkot Suddenly, I had a new and humbling appreciation for the wilderness experience.
Prelude:
Recapping last week’s prelude, as this week’s lesson is a continuation of the same. Same lesson, next day:
Leviticus 23:42-43 NLT
42 For seven days you must live outside in little shelters. All native-born Israelites must live in shelters. 43 This will remind each new generation of Israelites that I made their ancestors live in shelters when I rescued them from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”
John 7:2 NLT
2 But soon it was time for the Jewish Festival of Shelters,...
Let me offer a short synopsis of the Feast of Shelters, also known as the Festival of Booths, or simply ‘Sukkot’ as a prelude to this week's lesson. In short, it is one of the seven major festivals and one of the three pilgrimage festivals in the Jewish Heritage. The pilgrimage festivals, Passover, Pentecost, and Sukkot required all of the meen of Israel to come to Jerusalem in observance of said Holy Day (Sabbath). Established by God through Moses, Sukkot was a fall festival that occurred after The Day of Atonement and after Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. Sukkot was sort of a Jewish Thanksgiving.
Occurring in early October, it combined a celebration of thankfulness for the fall harvest along with a solemn remembrance of Israel’s deliverance through the wilderness under God’s loving care. The sukkot (depicted above) is a simple three-sided booth made of branches with a thatch ceiling that allows the inhabitants to look into the heavens and be reminded that God is always watching them. The fact that there were only three sides to the (four-sided) structure left the inhabitants with the understanding and assurance that God’s Presence was with them, just as it had been in the wilderness.
Sukkot was a festival that commemorated the forty-year passage through the wilderness. More importantly, it foreshadowed the eventual return of the Messiah and His deliverance of His people into their Heaven Inheritance (The Promised Land). It is within the context of the Sukkot that we view today’s lesson.
The Lesson
John 8:1 NLT
1 Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives,
Note to self. Follow Jesus’ example. After a day full of contention and stress (Chapter 7; Last week’s lesson), Jesus sought solitude, rest and communion with His Father. There is always time for prayer.
John 8:2 NLT
2 but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them.
This week’s lesson is a carryover from last week. From chapter 7 to chapter 8 is just a few hours. Jesus is back at the Temple teaching, just as He had the previous day. Accordingly, a crowd soon began to gather. Because it was Succot, people had traveled from hundreds, if not thousands (Rome) of miles away. They wanted to hear this young Rabbi whom they had heard so much about. Jesus was happy to accommodate. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Today, they would witness the majesty of grace.
John 8:3 NLT
3 As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.
Looking back at last week’s lesson, we find that, with all of the contentiousness Jesus had encountered the previous day, none had been based on direct contact with the Pharisees. Instead, he had been confronted by regular folk. Unbelievers. The Pharisees had simply ordered the Temple guards to arrest Jesus on sight. Because the guards had failed to arrest Him, the Pharisees decided to take the matter into their own hands. Their plan was to publicly discredit Him in the eyes of the people and then to arrest Him. He, who had been a friend of publicans and sinners, would now be challenged to judge such a one.
John 8:4 NLT
4 “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery.
Obviously, this scenario was well planned. In front of the huge crowd, the Pharisees drag forward a woman that they said was caught in adultery. How did they know? Where had they been hiding? What had they seen? And all of this on Succot. Thanksgiving.
John 8:5 NLT
5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
The Pharisees had planned well. They wanted to goad Jesus into contradicting the law of Moses. For Him to do so would contradict the message of love that Jesus had preached from the inception of His ministry on earth.
John 8:6 NLT
6 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.
However, Jesus knew their hearts. And yet, ignoring the Pharisees, Jesus continued to teach, writing in the dust of the ground. He fully intended to refute their foolishness by ignoring them.
John 8:7-8 NLT
7 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!” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
But the Pharisees were persistent. After all, they had gone to a great deal of trouble to lay this trap. Most certainly, they intended to see Jesus caught in it. However, what we discover is that the Pharisees were caught in a trap of their own making. Jesus challenged the Pharisees to see their fiendish plan through but with a caveat. He challenged them to examine themselves first. To find, among themselves, those who were so pure that they had the right to lift up stones against the woman. After that, Jesus returned to the lesson.
John 8:9 NLT
9 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.
Confronted with a glaring truth, the Pharisees suddenly began to see themselves as God saw them: sinners in need of a Savior. Suddenly, the true meaning of Succot became uncomfortably real. They WERE transparent before their Heavenly Father. He could see right through them. The Elders got it first. Rightfully so. They were the experts concerning the law of Moses. The depth of their guilt was clear, especially during such a Holy Week.
John 8:10-11 NLT
10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
11 “No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”
You can almost see the smirk appear on Christ’s face as He looks around to find only Himself and the accused woman standing in the middle of the crowd. That was too easy. He hadn’t even worked up a sweat. You can hear the sarcasm in His voice as He and this now-free woman celebrate her victory over her accusers by Jesus’ hand. Just moments before, she had been at death’s door. Now, she was free. Imagine her delight as Jesus sent her on her way, a free woman. Now listen. Listen to the buzz in the crowd. They are most certainly astounded by the ease with which Jesus dispatched His opponents. They had slunk away in shame, the very shame they had hoped to bring to bear on Jesus in their attempt to discredit Him. Surely, the crowd was amazed by the great grace they had just seen imparted to the accused woman. Certainly, they had been given a great testimony to take back home. In a single sentence, Jesus silenced His opponents and delivered a foretaste of the Gospel of Grace that He would eventually offer to all through His upcoming passion.
Romans 8:1-4 NLT
8 So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. 2 And because you belong to him, the power[a] of the life-giving Spirit has freed you[b] from the power of sin that leads to death. 3 The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature.[c] So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. 4 He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.
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John 8:56 NLT
56 Your father Abraham rejoiced as he looked forward to my coming. He saw it and was glad.”
At the end of this chapter, non-believers in the crowd argued that Abraham was their Father. They were the generation God promised to Abraham, but Jesus countered their argument by revealing a great mystery: Abraham rejoiced at the appearing of Christ. On Mount Moriah, just before he was to offer up his son as a sacrifice to God, the Angel of the Lord stopped Him and pointed out that God had provided a Ram, caught in a thicket by His horns, a foreshadowing of the eventual sacrifice Christ would make for us at Calvary. Yes, Abraham rejoiced. And if Abraham rejoiced, so should those who called themselves Abraham’s children.
John 8:57 NLT
57 The people said, “You aren’t even fifty years old. How can you say you have seen Abraham?”
Of course, they didn’t get it. But with His next words, Jesus would make it plain.
John 8:58 NLT
58 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I am!”
In this statement, Jesus identifies Himself as God. The eternal and everlasting God. God almighty. God! The Jews, both those who believed and those who refused to believe knew exactly what He meant.
John 8:59 NLT
59 At that point they picked up stones to throw at him. But Jesus was hidden from them and left the Temple.
And to further demonstrate their spiritual blindness, Jesus’ opponents sought to stone Him. However, it was not yet His time. He hid Himself and departed the Temple grounds unscathed. Even the things He didn’t do bore witness to God’s soveriegn power in His life. They just couldn’t see it.
Selah,
wb
