Many people think that the woman-taken-in-adultery account in John chapter 8 is an example of Jesus bending the law in order to be a nice guy and avoid having to condone the death penalty. Other people try and use this story to try to show that Jesus said that no person has the right to judge another.
The truth is almost exactly the opposite of that.
Review of Applicable Jewish Law
Deuteronomy 22:22-27 lays out the regulations in Jewish law for dealing with adultery. It shows three distinct situations where adultery takes place and the scope of punishment for each one. In each of these situations the execution of the man is called for. The first two situations call for execution of the woman also, but the third one does not.
The first thing to recognize is that the Pharisees who brought the woman before Jesus were not good, religious men who were concerned about right and wrong and upholding morality and the law. If their purpose was serious, they would have brought the man accused of adultery too, not just the woman.
Their entire purpose in bringing the woman before Jesus was to trap him. They didn’t really care that the woman had sinned. She was merely a pawn in their ongoing efforts to undermine and hopefully have Jesus killed.
Review of Applicable Roman Law
At this time, the Jews in Israel were under the control of the Roman Empire. Under Roman rule, the power to impose capital punishment, including by stoning, had been taken away from all Jewish authorities. Only a Roman tribunal could impose the death penalty. That is why even after Jesus was eventually arrested and condemned to death by the Jewish Sanhedrin, they didn’t stone him immediately themselves; he had to be taken before the Roman governor, Pilate, to actually impose the death penalty.
And when it was imposed he was killed using the Roman method — crucifixion– not stoning. The Jewish leaders had no legal authority to put him to death.
The same was true of the adulterous woman. Even though adultery was punishable by death under the Law of Moses, under Roman law, adultery was not a capital crime. Neither Jesus nor the Pharisees could legally have stoned the woman to death for having committed adultery.
About Jesus writing on the ground...
In John 8:4, the Pharisees asked Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”
Notice His response. Jesus performs an interesting act of subtlety. While remaining seated he bends over and writes with his finger on the ground. This act of writing on the ground is significant because of the day itself.
This was the eighth day of the feast which was to be kept as a day of rest, and as such was considered to be a Sabbath day. Jewish law included 39 categories of activity that the Talmud prohibited on the Sabbath day, one of them was writing.
It was unlawful to write even two letters of their alphabet on the Sabbath, but writing with dust (or dirt) was permissible. Jesus' writing on the ground demonstrated that he knew the law very well, and also showed that he was not going to engage in debate on the subject.
After the Pharisees asked him again, Jesus lifted himself up and said unto them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” (NKJV) And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
It is important to remember that Jesus himself was so well versed in the law that he was able to astound legal professionals by the age of 12. Jesus was talking to Jewish religious leaders and lawyers. The conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees was not a feel-good, love-is-groovy conversation, it was shop talk.
Jesus' response was not, "Well, okay, the law says we should stone her, but I'm a nice guy and I don't like that, so let's bend the law this time, and recognize that none of us are perfect, OK?"
Jesus’ response was in effect saying, "You guys want to be legalistic? Okay, fine: let's be legalistic". Jesus’ call for those who claimed to have witnessed the adultery to step forward themselves to impose the punishment as the law demands. And so the accusers were entrapped by the very trap they had tried to snare Jesus with.
• If they stepped forward as witnesses, they would have opened themselves to questions about how they witnessed the act of adultery and why the man involved is not also present and accused as demanded by the law of Moses.
• If they try to carry out the stoning, they will be in violation of Roman law
When Jesus calls for “he who is without sin should cast the first stone” he accomplishes several things:
• it prevents him from being charged by the Romans of having instigated a stoning
• it ensures there would not be a stoning, since none of the accusers will want to take responsibility for it or explain where the missing man is
• it causes the Pharisees and lawyers to reflect on their own sinfulness before God
• their withdrawal from the scene was a confession of their own sin
• those who came to condemn ended up condemning themselves by not casting a stone
Jesus' answer to the Pharisees called on them to focus their attention on their own sins, not on the sins of the adulterous woman. Jesus’ compelled the accusers to judge themselves instead of the woman.
Jesus’ response to the Pharisees was an incredible job of defense lawyering and is frankly much worthier of who Jesus is, than the namby-pamby let's-just-make-nice escapism that is usually attributed to him for it.
