The Penitent's Gospel
‘And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” — John viii. ii.
THIS passage has been the subject of more eager debate than any other in the Gospels. It is omitted by many ancient MSS.; it is rejected by several of the Fathers; it bears in its fabric, in the original, traces of the tremendous storm through which it has passed. And yet there is no possibility of accounting for its existence, save on the supposition that the incident really took place. It reveals in our Saviour’s character a wisdom so profound, a tenderness to sinners so delicate, a hatred of sin so intense, an insight into human hearts so searching, that it is impossible to suppose the mind of man could have conceived, or the hand of man invented, this most pathetic story.
Our Lord, who had spent the night on the Mount of Olives, re-crossed the Kedron, and entered the Temple, probably as one of the first worshippers. When a sufficient number had gathered. He withdrew to a seat against the Treasury wall; and sitting down, began to teach the expectant people.
He had not proceeded far in his discourse, when a band of scribes and Pharisees, adorned with their customary badges of sanctity, and bringing in their midst one who had been guilty of flagrant sin, was seen approaching across the Temple square. Making their way through the opening crowd, they placed their trembling, shrinking prisoner before Him, and intimated that they had come there early for his opinion.
Immorality at that time had reached such a pitch, that the laws of Moses had fallen into disuse, for the very reason that it is impossible to legislate in advance of public opinion. If He confirmed the Mosaic sentence, and insisted on its execution, they would accuse Him to the people as a relentless censor, desirous of reviving the penalties of primitive Judaism. If He refused to confirm it, they could put Him to death, as an assailant of God’s law. It seemed impossible for Him to show that tender pity to sinners, which had marked his whole career, and which had placed a publican among his chosen friends, whilst at the same time He maintained the sanctity of the ancient code. It was a shameful plot; and some have thought that He stooped down to write on the ground to conceal the burning shame and holy indignation that leaped to his face.
The accusers stood there unabashed, holding the woman in their midst, and pressing their brutal question. They may have thought, indeed, that his very silence proved Him to be caught in an inextricable dilemma. But their triumph did not last long, for the Saviour raised Himself up, and spake a word which fell in their midst like a bolt from a clear sky: “Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone at her.” In a moment memoiy and conscience began to work, and at length the oldest man drew back in the crowd and vanished; then the next, and the next, one by one, till the last was gone. And Jesus was left alone with the woman; not alone in the sense of there being no one else present, but that there was no one save the woman left of all who had broken in on his blessed presence, “Woman,” said He, turning on her those searching, tender eyes, “hath no man condemned thee?” She said unto Him, “No man. Lord.” Then said Jesus, “Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more.”
There are three ways of dealing with sin.
I. The Sinner’s Way of treating Sin. -It is a terrible thing for a sinner to fall into the hands of his fellow sinners. Sin blinds them to their own faults, but sharpens them to detect the faults of others. They cover themselves beneath the glistening robes of fair excuses, but ruthlessly strip them away from the offenders whom they drag into the light of day.
What a terrible spectacle is here! There is not one of these men who can plead his freedom from this very sin. As they drag this woman forward, each one remembers scenes in the past in which he played a leading part, and which strangely resemble this, with the single exception of not having been found out, or of having been condoned. But they have no burning shame in the presence of their sin; no pity for the sinner; no jealousy for the honour of God; no apparent desire to bring back the wanderer. To them the incident is simply a test-case, suggesting curious speculations, and affording a convenient net for entrapping the steps of Him whom they hated as darkness ever hates the day. They take a prurient pleasure in enumerating all the details — “in the very act.” They hold the sinner up as a public spectacle — “setting her in the midst.” They leave her to her fate.
There is little hope for the sinner at hands like these. They may send him to the judge and the officer; to the gaol or the reformatory. They may make the case one for light gossip and casuistical distinctions, studying it as an anatomical deformity. They may proudly gather up the robes of their virtuous horror as they sweep past. But there is no attempt to measure the anguish of the sin-stained heart, or the suffering which bums the heart of the Saviour. And the sinner is presently dropped as a curious specimen, when its special peculiarities have been duly examined and entered in a book. Ah, how many there are around us who had never come to what they are, had they not been driven to it by the way in which the religious people around them dealt with their first deviation from the paths of strict integrity! The first wandering steps were eagerly watched, not with the view of following and reclaiming the erring one, but for purposes of gossip or fault-finding. The special features of the sin were eagerly noted and discussed, whilst any palliating excuses were repressed. The sudden silence, the averted looks, the chilling, cutting manner, branded the sin as unpardonable; shut the door upon repentance; and plunged the sinner into deeper and more abundant transgression.
Would that each of us would lock the story of another’s guilt in some deep chamber of the heart, until floods of tears had been shed and abundant prayers offered; and, if mentioned ever to others, only told with the view of securing their co-operation in winning back the stray sheep to the green pastures and still waters of the fold. The world is full of sinners who are plunging into deeper sin, because they have been taught by their more religious fellows that there is no hope for such as they are. But they might be saved if they could only be freed from the religious world and left alone with Jesus.
II. The Law’s Way of Treating Sin. — “Moses said that such an one should be stoned.” It is with the moral, as with natural law — the least violation of its provisions is immediately and terribly avenged. It may be the first offence, or a very slight one, or one the commission of which was followed by floods of tears and an agony of remorse; but the law at once lifts its heavy arm to smite. Its executioner is commissioned to do his work; and the offender falls beneath its curse and penalty.
The function of the law is twofold. First it has to reveal our need of salvation; to hold up the looking-glass that we may go for soap; to convince us of our disease that we may hasten for the physician; to make us feel the badness of our best till we are shut up to Christ. Next, it has to smite, and scourge, and punish us, when we go aside from the narrow thread-like path of perfect goodness. The sinner, therefore, has no hope as he stands beneath Mount Sinai. He cannot climb those cliffs. Nay, he is smitten down by the pieces of the broken tables as they leap downwards from crag to crag. And Moses, with one blow of his fist, so Bunyan tells us, completes the work.
III. The Saviour’s Way of Treating Sin. — In that bowed head and hidden face we get a slight indication of how much it costs Him. Sin cannot change his royal heart, or staunch his pity, or fre«ze the fountains of his compassion.
Nay, it makes Him more careful to show his tender, pitying, pleading love. Was it not to Peter that He sent a special message from the open grave, on the resurrection morning? But though sin cannot alter Him, it makes Him suffer keenly, bitterly.
Have you not seen a woman dying by inches beneath the dissolute conduct of her son? She does not murmur, or chide, or blaze abroad his sins. No other hand than hers shall open that front door to him, as he comes home drunk night after night. And he never hears an upbraiding word from those gentle lips. But God alone can measure what those acts of sin are costing her. Her figure becomes more bent, her hair more white, her steps slower, her heart feebler. And shall woman’s love suffer thus, and shall not the Saviour suffer as much more, as his love is more than hers? It is easy for us to come to Him for forgiveness, and to go our ways knowing that the words of complete absolution have been uttered; but do we think enough how much that sin, so soon confessed and put away, cost Him on the cross, costs Him now, and will cost Him, as the scar of it is borne by Him, “crucified afresh “?
The early Church was inclined to suppress this stor)’, lest it might lead to sin. They did not realize how that averted face would make men bow their heads in shame, and beat upoa their breasts; not for themselves alone, and not because of any thought of penalty, but because they had torn open his wounds, and woven again thorns for his brow. We go forth from that vision, by his grace, to sin no more.
He sometimes seems to wait ere He utters the words of peace. But this is from no tardiness in his love. He wants those ruthless accusers to drop away, and the soul to have time to realize its sin in his holy presence. And when all hope beside is abandoned, and the hour of self-despair has struck; when He can detect signs of genuine repentance and wistful yearning; when the soul turns from its sin to Him in a very agony of desire — He says, “There is now no condemnation; neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more.”
Oh, souls conscious of sin, do not wait to be brought into his holy presence! haste thither of your own free will. It is “‘t totU JForgibe tlrcc.” 159
the only place in all the universe where you will be safe. Accusing voices are hushed there, and accusing forms are banished. Wait! He will condemn thy sin, but not thee. And his condemnation will be more in what He looks and is than in his words. Yea, thou wilt accuse thyself a thousand times more than He will. And finally, by right of the propitiation of the cross, He will forgive thee, and send thee forth to tell others the story of a love which fails not, nor is discouraged, in its conflict with human sin; but sets itself to substitute for the reign of sin the reign of grace through righteousness unto eternal life.