Chapter VIII
Verses 1-11. This passage has been rejected by some as an interpolation. The chief arguments against it are the following: It is not found in some of the oldest manuscripts and earlier translations; that some of the Greek fathers never refer to it; that it differs in style from the rest of this Gospel; that the incident would foster immorality. All these arguments have been proven invalid. Some of the most reliable manuscripts contain this paragraph, and in others it was omitted on purpose, because the grace, which shines forth so marvelously in the Lord’s dealing with this woman, was unpalatable to those teachers who leaned towards legality. It seems the fear that it might lead to license seems to have influenced a good many in the early Church to discountenance this blessed story. Augustinus in one of his works refers to this. In speaking of the case of a wife who has committed adultery, he says, how well it becomes a Christian husband to be reconciled to her, upon her repentance, because our Lord said, “Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more.” This, however, rather shocks the minds of some weak believers, or rather unbelievers and enemies of the Christian faith, insomuch that, afraid of its giving their wives impunity in sinning, they struck out of their copies of the Gospel this that our Lord did in pardoning the woman taken in adultery; as if He granted leave of sinning, when He said, “Go, and sin no more.”
It is evident from the text that this story belongs here and must be genuine. If we leave it out the text would make no sense, for in verse 53 of the previous chapter we read: “Every man went to his own house.” If we leave out the first eleven verses of this chapter, the next verse, verse 12, ‘““Then spake Jesus again unto them,” makes no connection whatever. But from the beginning of chapter viii we learn that our Lord, having spent the night on Olivet, returned early to the temple and was surrounded at once by the people who still lingered in Jerusalem after the feast of Tabernacles. Then He sat down and resumed His teaching. But before He could do so His enemies were once more active. In the previous chapter they had failed to take Him by force. The officers had returned without Him, for His hour had not yet come. Their attempt is now to ensnare Him so as to find occasion to accuse Him of some inconsistency.
The woman who had just been apprehended in adultery is brought into His presence. They form a circle about Him and put the woman alongside of the Lord, thus putting the Holy One of Israel alongside of one of His sinful, lost creatures, for whom He had come to die. We do not know who this woman was, as her name and history are not given. They state the case against her. She was taken in adultery. The Law of Moses demanded that she suffer the death penalty by stoning (Lev. xx:10, Deuteronomy xxii:22). They demand “What therefore sayest thou?” There is no difficulty in finding out why they put this question to Him. In their cunning they thought He must answer that the law of Moses must be upheld and the sentence executed. If he had answered thus they would have gone at once to the Roman authorities and accused Him as some kind of a rebel against the orders of the Government, for it was not lawful for the Jews to put anyone to death (xviii:31). If He would answer negatively, that the woman should not be stoned, they would have made coin out of this, and quickly passed the word that He was a lawbreaker, one who upheld unrighteousness and sin.
And while they plotted and concocted this scheme to harm Him, He knew their thoughts. Nothing was hid from His omniscient eye. While they waited for a reply, He stooped down and wrote with His finger on the ground. It is the only passage in the Gospels which tells us that our Lord wrote. What did He trace on the ground? No one knows, for there is nothing said about it by John. But let us remember the same finger which wrote in the dust is the finger which wrote the law — He is the lawgiver; that law pronounces death, it is written in the dust, the dust of death. Not a word came from His lips. But the questioners were persistent and determined to get an answer. “Then He lifted up Himself and said unto 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.” His perfect wisdom is once more revealed. He was not the one to sit in judgment and pronounce the sentence. The witnesses according to the law were to be the executioners of the sentence of the law. They had come bringing the charge. Were they guiltless, or had they also broken the commandment, ‘““Thou shalt not commit adultery’? If there was one in that company who had not sinned in this line, he might come to the front and cast the first stone at the woman. They all sneaked out. The eldest left first; they were convicted by their own conscience. If they were guilty of the same sin which the woman had committed, then they were under the same sentence of death for the same sin. He who spoke to them knew their lives and sin. What a testimony this is to the moral condition of the Jewish people in the days of our Lord! These Scribes and Pharisees with their high profession and pretensions were guilty of grossest sin.
They had all gone away. The accusers were gone, the accused woman remained face to face with Him, who knew no sin, in whose mouth no guile was found. ‘‘Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord.” How delicately and graciously He treated the poor woman! He might have asked her about her sin and guilt. He might have rebuked her. But none of all this came from His blessed lips. He did not need to ask her about her guilt. He knew her life’s history, as He knows ours. And the woman addressed Him as “Lord,” which is evidence that she believed in Him. She expressed her faith in Him, uttering this one word “Lord,” the word a disciple of our Lord, Judas Iscariot never used. And because she believed in Him as Lord, He said, ‘“‘Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more.” He revealed His grace unto her, but that grace demands holiness. Forgiveness must be followed by the new life.
Verses 12-20. The incident of the woman brought before the Lord was an interruption. He had returned in the early morning to the temple to teach. Probably the sun was just beginning to shine, when looking towards the sunrise He made this great statement, “I am the light of the world.” It is another great self-witness. He is the light, already so blessedly announced in the first chapter of the Gospel. This means He is the light and gives light; apart from Him all is darkness, but in His light we see the light. He is the light of the world, it is to reach the Gentiles. This is especially revealed in Isaiah (Chapter xlix). After the complaint of Messiah, prophetically stated, and as relating to Israel, “I have laboured in vain” — the rejected One is announced as the light for the Gentiles — ‘“I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the ends of the earth” (Isaiah xlix:1-6). And he that followeth Him, He assures us, shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life. Following necessitates believing on Him, for none can follow Him as the light, unless there is faith in Him. ‘What the teacher is to the scholar, the master to the servant, the guide to the traveler, the general to the soldier, the shepherd to the sheep, that is Christ to the believer who follows Him.”
Following Him is walking in the light and not in darkness. Man on account of sin is in moral and spiritual darkness. Believing on Christ and following Him delivers from both. In his fellowship the believer is delivered from the power of darkness, from the power of sin and from ignorance as to spiritual things. No prophet ever made such an assertion as this, and only He could make it because He is Lord and God, the Life and the Light.
Then the Pharisees answered Him, ‘“Thou bearest record of Thyself; thy record is not true.”’ Because He spoke thus of Himself, they branded His self-witness as untrustworthy. Their objection was another evidence of the darkened mind of the natural man, as well as the hatred of their hearts. The Lord answers at once, that though He bore record of Himself, yet His testimony concerning Himself is true. How abundantly this has been confirmed in the experiences of believing sinners in every generation, men “and women uncountable, who believed on Him, followed Him, and rejoiced in the light of life, walking in the light as He is in the light. But He added “for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come and whither I go.” He knew who He was, the Son of God, the Lord of glory. He knew the great work He came to do in redemption, and He knew that He would return to the glory from which He came. Of this they were ignorant, or else they would not have charged Him with bearing an untrustworthy testimony, but would have worshipped at His feet. They judged only after the outward appearance, but He did not judge man in this manner. He did not come to judge the world, yet the day will come when He will execute the judgments committed into His hands by the Father. When that judgment time comes, His judgment will be true; for in it He is not alone — “‘For I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent Me.” Here once more the great testimony of John’s Gospel, the inseparable union of the Father and the Son, is in evidence.
In the law it is written ‘‘that the testimony of two men is true’ (Deuteronomy xvii:6; xix:15). There were two witnesses as to Himself and His mission; He bore witness of Himself and the Father also witnessed concerning Him, for He had sent Him. Then His enemies wanted to know about His Father, ‘‘Where is Thy Father?” In asking this question they showed contempt, as if saying, ‘“‘Where then is this father of yours? Why does he not show himself and tell us all about you?”
Then the Lord answered and said, “Ye neither know Me, nor My Father; if ye had known Me, ye should have known my Father also.” These are weighty words again. Not only do they show once more the unity of the Son with the Father, but they teach us that knowledge of the Father is only possible through the Son. Not knowing Christ means not knowing the Father. But knowing Christ, believing on Him, following Him, gives the knowledge of the Father, and as believers know Christ better, they learn to know the Father more and more. ‘‘Whosoever denieth the Son, the same has
Ft i eh Tc tr it me
a I DOT IE ee er eS eR. not the Father” (1 John ii:23). ‘Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and he in God” (John iv:15). “He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (1 John v212).
All this took place in the temple, in that portion called the treasury. Boldly He had declared His Messiahship and His Oneness with God. But no one laid hands on Him, not for fear of the multitudes, many of whom sided with Him, but because His hour was not yet come.*
Verses 21-27. These words were spoken by the Lord probably some time later on the same day, but not in the same place, “‘in the treasury of the temple” (verse 20). In the beginning of this new discourse He tells them that He is going His way. What wayisthis? It is the way marked out in the eternal purposes of God. That way led Him from the throne of glory down into the world to die for sinners, and after that the way led Him back to the Father. “I go my way”; blessed expression! He came that way for us, and those who believe on Him, for whom He died, follow Him in that way to the Father’s house. ‘Then they would seek Him. This evidently means that they would look for the Messiah, but, having rejected Him, there is no other to seek. As the result of His rejection, they would die in their sins, “whither I go, ye cannot come.” This is a most solemn utterance of our Lord. Those who do not believe on Him die in their sins and, dying unsaved, there is no possibility of ever being in heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ has gone. No matter what theories have been invented to hold out a hope for the unsaved after death, they all wither into nothingness before this word of our Lord. But they were unable to understand His words. Perhaps their own murderous
*“The expression should be carefully noticed, and remembered by all true Christians. It teaches that the wicked can do no harm to Christ and His members until God gives them permission. Not a hair of a believer’s head can be touched until God in His sovereign wisdom allows it. It teaches that all times are in God’s hand. ‘There is an allotted ‘hour’ both for doing and for suffering. ‘Till the hour comes for dying no Christian will die. When the hour comes nothing can prevent his death. These are comfortable truths, and deserve attention. Christ’s members are safe and immortal till their work is
done. When they suffer, it is because God wills it and sees it good.” — “Thoughts on John.”
thoughts suggested the idea that He meant to take His own life, “Will He kill Himself?” It shows how dreadful is the darkness of the natural man.
Then He gives a double contrast. “Ye are from beneath; I am from above. Ye are of this world; I am not of this world.” And this is not only true of the Jews who listened to His words, it is true of every human being. By nature we are all from beneath, we are all of this world, and because we are from beneath and of this world, we are lost sinners. But how precious to know that through grace, through His own blessed work of sinbearing, the sinner who believes on Him is born from above. The “from beneath” is changed to “from above.’ The newborn believer then is no longer of this world. He expressed this marvelous truth in His own great prayer (chapter xvii) when praying for His own, for all who believe, “they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”
Then He takes up the previous thought of “dying in your sins.” What does it mean? Did He mean their individual sins only. It means that the great sin on account of which they die in their sins is unbelief. “For if ye believe not that Iam He, ye shall die in your sins.” This is still the Truth. No matter how great a sinner a man or woman may be, there is salvation at the door of each by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, believing that He is the Son of God and died for the ungodly. No matter how morally a man and a woman may live, how much good they may do, if they reject the Lord Jesus Christ, if they refuse to believe on Him, it is true of all, as it was true of those Jews in the days of our Lord, “Sf ye believe not that I am He (the Lord) ye shall die in your sins.”
This only incensed them more. Who art Thou? they asked Him, perhaps sarcastically, certainly not honestly. Maybe they tried to ensnare Him. His brief answer suggests this thought, “Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning.”
Once more He bears witness of His oneness with Him who sent Him, His Father. Many other things He might have spoken and many other judgments He might have uttered concerning them; He did not do so, for He spoke just those ee things which accorded with what He had heard of Him, who sent Him. But so dense were their minds and unbelieving hearts that they understood not that He spoke to them of the Father.
Verses 28-33. In the next place He speaks of His coming death. The words are a prophecy. He predicts once more His death by crucifixion and that they would do it, “When ye have lifted up the Son of Man.” But what does it mean when He tells them that then they would know “‘that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself”? Does it mean that some of them would then believe on Him and acknowledge Him as the Messiah, the Son of God? Or does our Lord mean that the judgments which came upon the unbelieving nation would bea proof by which they would find out that He was the sent One of the Father? We think both views are true. After His death thousands of the Jews who had rejected Him believed on His Name and were saved. His resurrection demonstrated the fact that He is the Son of God, and that all He spoke was of the Father. But, on the other hand, the Jews, and Jerusalem, impenitent as a nation, found out also that He is the Son of God. The great Jewish historian Josephus attributed rightly the misfortunes of the Jewish people to the death of Christ. What calmness and assurance breathe in His words, “And He that sent Me is with Me; the Father hath not left Me alone; for I do always those things that please Him.” Never was that fellowship between the Father and the Son broken. On the Cross He was forsaken of God, but in anticipation of His coming suffering He could say to His disciples, ‘““Ye shall leave Me alone, and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me” (xvi:32). Then many believed on Him, but not in the true sense of the word. ‘They were convinced in a certain measure, but hearts and consciences were not touched. We have no record that they fell at His feet to worship Him, or that they followed Him as true disciples.
Those who professed to believe on Him He now addresses in a few sentences, and what follows demonstrates the fact stated above that they did not believe on Him in true faith. He gives them a test of true discipleship. “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed.” Such is the only real and safe proof of discipleship. He that is truly saved and a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ will continue in His Word. ‘And ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free.”” Knowing the Lord Jesus Christ is knowing the Truth, for He is the Truth. And furthermore He is the key which unlocks all the Truth of God, for He is the center of God’s revelation. And Christ the Truth, He and His Word, make us free, free from the bondage and burden of sin, free to serve God in newness of life. But how much more there is included in this one verse!
Verses 33-41. Those whom He addressed had professed faith in Him. But now their language in answer to His words betrays their condition. Had they been true believers they would have accepted His Word and continued in it. They were proud, self-exalted Jews, unchanged from the condition in which they were when John the Baptist called them to repentance, for they said then, “We have Abraham for our father” (Matt. iii:19). They boasted of freedom, yet they were domineered over by the Romans, and it was a heavy yoke. But underneath this language was the unchanged heart, the heart of pride and self-sufficiency. It is so today. We find thousands upon thousands in the professing churches who are in the same condition. They have never seen their lost condition; they do not believe that they are dead in trespasses and sins; they do not own themselves helpless and slaves to sin. What the Jews said, ‘““We be Abraham’s seed,” is heard throughout the professing sphere of Christendom; “We go to church.... we were baptized.
. we do this and do that.... How can we be lost?”
His answer to them is, ““Whosever committeth sin is a servant of sin.” This sentence demonstrates what freedom the Lord meant, not political freedom, but freedom from the slavery of sin in which every natural man is. Man is a sinner, he has a nature which is corrupt and which is capable of nothing else but sinning. He must live habitually in sin, and therefore he is mastered by sin, he is a slave. It is the new nature, the new life in Christ, which delivers from this bondage.
The servant abideth not in the house forever, but the Son abideth ever. They were under the Jewish economy we are children of God? There is one simple way of finding it out. Do we love Christ? If not, it is vain and idle to talk of God as our Father, and ourselves as God’s children. No love to Christ, no sonship to God.” They did not understand His speech because they were not willing to hear and accept His word.
Then He tells them to their faces what He meant when He had spoken of their father. In verse 44 we have the Lord’s revelation concerning the devil, that once magnificent and glorious being, who fell and became the enemy of God. They were his followers, for they were ready to do his bidding in killing the Lord of glory. He was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth, for there is no truth in him. Some apply this to his first murderous act, when he induced Cain to slay his brother Abel, but it rather means that this being from the beginning was determined to bring in sin and death. Besides this he is the liar and the father of it. Our Lord teaches here the personality of the devil; He teaches the fall of this being as well as the character of him. Yet the modern Theology denies both the existence of the devil and the fall of such a being. If the devil can laugh, he must surely laugh over these theological scholars whom he has blinded to such a degree that they deny their own master’s existence. The devil spoke the lie, the Jews believed that lie; the Son of God in their midst spoke the truth, and Him they believed not.
Two questions follow: “Which of you convinceth Me of sin?” ‘There was no answer. In Him was no sin; He was holy and undefiled; not a flaw in all His spotless holy life. The second question, “If I say the Truth, why do ye not believe Me?” Nor did they have an answer for this. The Lord answers the last question. ‘He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.” They were not of God, therefore they hated Him and did not believe His words.
Verses 48-53. The Lord had told them “ye are of your father, the devil” (verse 44). They now bear witness to the truth of His words, for what they say concerning Him is satanic abuse and blasphemy. They did not understand what He had been saying to them; their natural minds could not lay hold on what He taught, yet they must have felt the power of His words and the power of His own person. Unable to answer they manifested their hatred in calling Him vilenames. To call a Jew a Samaritan meant the same as making of the Jew an outcast, a deluded, wicked apostate. Furthermore they charged Him with being possessed by a demon. With this they committed the same sin which is called in the Gospel of Matthew “the blasphemy and sin against the Holy Spirit’? (Matthew xii:31), for if He was a Samaritan and controlled by the devil’s power, His works were not done by the power of God.
But this horrible abuse only brings out the moral glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. He does not hurl back at them some harsh words, which they well deserved. One feels the very calmness of His holy soul in the recorded answer He gives. “I have not a devil; but I honor My Father, and ye dishonor Me.” It is a straightforward denial of their blasphemous charge. In all His words, in all His works, He honored the Father who had sent Him; hence they were dishonoring Him. Had He come simply to seek glory for Himself, the accusation they uttered would have completely humiliated Him in His ambition; but He did not come to seek His own glory. He sought only the glory of the Father, therefore they had insulted God. He added a solemn word — ‘There is One that seeketh and judgeth.” He means the Father. While He the Son came to seek His Glory, the Father seeketh the Glory of His Son. Whenever we, as believers, honor the Son, seek His glory, exalt His Name, we please the Father, whose delight is in the Son. But the Father not only seeketh the Glory of the Son, but He is going to judge. He will deal with all who dishonor His beloved Son. ‘What have you done with my Son?” will be the great question the unsaved and the Gospel-rejectors have to face, when He, the Son, will occupy the judgment throne, to execute the judgments the Father has committed unto Him. All the dishonor done to Christ, the dishonor done to Him by the destructive critics, by Unitarians, Christian Scientists, Jews, Theosophists and Spiritists will then be reckoned with.
And now once more He speaks of the great truth which all along in this Gospel is unfolded, the truth concerning eternal life. ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man keep My saying, he shall never see death.” This had been His great message in the sixth chapter, and now once more He declared it in their hearing. If they would keep His saying, which means, hear the words He had spoken, believe on them and obey them, death could not touch them. It cannot mean physical death, but that other death, the eternal loss of the soul. Augustinus comments on this passage as follows: “The death from which our Lord came to deliver us is the second death, eternal death, the death of hell, the death of damnation with the devil and his angels. That is indeed death; for this death of ours is only a migration.”
These wonderful words of life brought forth the former accusation from the listening Jews. They found in them, in the darkness of their hearts, an evidence that their charge that He had a devil was true. “Now we know that thou hast a devil.” Their reasoning is human. They think of Abraham and the prophets. They are all dead and here is one who claims that if His sayings are kept by a man “he shall never taste death.”’ But the Lord had not said this at all; they misquoted His words. ‘Thus they always perverted His words; it is still so today as far as the blind world is concerned. Whom makest thou thyself in view of the fact that Abraham is dead and the prophets are dead?
Verses 54-59. He disclaims all honor for Himself; His Father honoreth Him, the same whom they claimed as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He told them that they did not know Him. They professed to know God; by their deeds they denied Him. But He, the Son, knows the Father, and if He were to say “I know Him not” He would be a liar, as they were liars. Then He added that significant statement: “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it and was glad.” Previously they had asked “art thou greater than our father Abraham?” This question He now answers. He does not say “our father Abraham” as the Jews still say when speaking of the father of the race. By using “your” He gave them to understand the He cannot be classed with the nation as such. While He was the Son of David and the Son of Abraham, yet was
He not the Son of Abraham in the same sense as every Jew is the Son of Abraham. Then the omniscient Lord said that Abraham rejoiced to see His day, that he actually saw it and was glad. This shows that Abraham had knowledge of the coming of the Messiah, his seed, in whom all the nations are to be blest. The Holy Spirit opened the eyes of the father of the faithful and showed him the future days of the promised One. We do not know at what time such a vision was given to Abraham. It may have been when the Lord visited him in the tent at Mamre; perhaps it was on the great day when he put his beloved Isaac upon the altar as the sacrifice, and received him back from the altar, the blessed types of the death and the resurrection of our Lord. It is certain from the words of the Lord that Abraham looked forward to the days when He, the Lord of glory, would be in the midst of His people.
Astonished at such a statement His hearers said, ‘“Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?” Some have supposed that the face of our Lord must have looked care-worn, furrowed by deep lines, so that the people thought that He was perhaps nearly fifty years old. It was probably only an expression of common usage; His exact age was not known to them. What He meant they hear now from His lips. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.” Without doubt this is one of the greatest words spoken by our Lord in witnessing to Himself. There is only one explanation possible. He speaks of Himself as Jehovah, the I Am, the self-existing One. Before them stands the same One who appeared in the burning bush unto Moses and said, ‘Say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me.” Here then is the great testimony He bears as to His own person. He reveals Himself as Jehovah, the pre-existent One. Before Abraham was — not I was — but, I Am.
This, at least, the Jews seemed to understand. They were not in doubt of what He meant. He had spoken to them in no uncertain tones and they realized that He claimed to be Jehovah, very God Himself. All their satanic hatred, born of unbelief, is now manifested. They took up stones to stone Him. They were but following their master, the murderer, from the beginning. It is one of Satan’s attempts to kill the Lord. ‘But Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.” Did He merely hide Himself, or was it a miraculous disappearance? We believe it was the latter. In his comment Augustinus says, “Jesus did not hide Himself in a corner of the temple as if He were afraid, or take refuge in a house or run behind a wall or a pillar; but by His heavenly power He made Himself invisible to His enemies, and went through the midst of them.” We believe this is the correct meaning of this event. His enemies could not touch Him till the appointed hour for His passion and death came. And when it came He suffered and died, not because He could not escape, but because He would not.