#12
True,but what did He right in the sand?
"...so that they could entrap Jesus between Mosaic Law and Roman law."
This is what I was taught. The point being that this story was included in the Scriptures not to be an example of "justice" or even "mercy." It was just another example of the lengths to which the Pharisees & Sanhedrin would go to discredit Jesus in the eyes of the Jewish people & convince the Roman government to take care of this "Jesus" problem for them. It was explained to me that the Jewish high priests were allowed by Rome to impose punishment on their own people for breaking Mosaic Law with only one exception...they could not impose the death penalty on anyone. Only the Roman government could do that. That's why they took Jesus to the Romans with demands that he be crucified, remember? So the point of this story is that the priests were attempting to trap Jesus into saying that the woman should be put to death (upholding Mosaic Law, but breaking Roman Law) or to say that she must NOT be stoned (upholding Roman Law, but breaking Mosaic Law). Either way, the Jewish high priests would have won the day. Had he said, "Stone her," they could have then turned him over to the Romans for punishment. Had he said, "Don't stone her," they could discredit him as a Mosaic lawbreaker. The real point of the story, then, was to demonstrate Jesus' power to thwart the evil machinations of the unrighteous. When Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you," can we actually prove that it was simply an act of mercy? Wasn't He really prevented from exercising judgement or mercy toward this woman under BOTH Mosaic & Roman Law? He said that He had come not to change the Law (Mosaic), but to fulfill it. In showing this woman mercy (essentially absolving her of her crime) He would be changing the Law, wouldn't He? Seems to me, Jesus was merely acknowledging that in His temporal state, he could not condemn anyone. Still, he reminds the woman that she is not above Divine judgement, because he tells her to "sin no more."
I find it to be very shallow thinking to say that Jesus did not/would not condone a death penalty. There were many crimes under Mosaic Law that called for death as punishment. If one truly believes that Jesus is divine - that He was God incarnate - then one must believe that He understood & agreed with Mosaic Law - even the penalty of death - because He, in fact, authored it.