《Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures – John (Ch. 4~Ch. 8》(Johann P. Lange) 04 Chapter 4

And with his finger wrote^[FN33] on the ground.^[FN34]—Some manuscripts, such as E. K, add μὴ προσποιούμενος [dissimulans], others καὶ προσποιούμενος [simulans]; that Isaiah, according to Lücke, in the one case: not merely feigning; in the other: only feigning. Manifestly exegetical additions. According to the correct interpretation of Euthymius Zigabenus, the whole act of stooping down and writing on the ground was symbolical, and was meant to express inattention to the questioners before Him. Lücke: “This gesture was familiar to antiquity as a representation of deep musing, perplexity or languor of mind;” see the examples in Lücke, p269, note1, where Wetstein also is quoted. It Isaiah, therefore, contrary to the spirit of the text to ask what Jesus might have written (Michaelis: the answer: “As it is written” Bede: the sentence in John 8:7; conjectures in Wolf and Lampe).^[FN35]

If we ask, why Jesus does not here enter upon the question, as He did in like cases at the last passover,—it is not enough to answer, that He would not interfere in civil matters ( Matthew 22; Luke 12:13 sq, Meyer), or that He would intimate that the question was too malicious to deserve an answer (Luthardt). We have rather to consider that He has not yet received His distinct introduction as Messiah in Jerusalem by the public hosanna, and now abstains from any official offer of Himself as Messiah, and indeed intends not to appear at all as Messiah, according to their idea. Therefore, as this matter is still in suspense, He also leaves His position towards their question in suspense; He neither rejects nor accepts it. But He certainly does already assume the expression of a calm majesty which is not pleased to have its leisure and recreation intruded upon with a street scandal. If they really take Him for the Messiah, they must consent to this.

John 8:7. He that is without sin among you, etc.^[FN36]—The test just named, they stand. They continue in their questioning. Hence He now gives them the New Testament decision, “Without sin.” As ἀναμάρτητος, sinless, occurs only this once in the New Testament (though frequently in classic usage), it cannot be made into an inconsistency with the style of John. How is the word “without sin,” to be understood?

1. Erasmus, Zuingle, Calvin, Baur, Hase [Owen] make it absolute sinlessness. Hase therefore thinks that the answer is a proof of the apocryphal nature of the section; so do Paulus and Baur, since the demand that only sinless men alone should act as judges and pronounce sentence, is utterly inadmissible.

2. Meyer [p330], after Lücke: “Whether He means freedom from the possibility of fault (of error or of sin), like Plato in Pol. I, p339 B, or freedom from actual fault [comp. γυνὴ ἀναμάρτητος Herod. v39]; and likewise, whether He means this latter in general ( 2 Maccabees 8:4), or in respect to a particular category or species of sin ( 2 Maccabees 12:42; Deuteronomy 29:19), is to be decided solely by the context. And here freedom from sin must be understood, not indeed of adultery specifically, because Jesus could not presume this of the whole hierarchy even in view of all their moral corruption; but of unchastity, because one guilty of this stands in question and before the eyes of all as an actual opposite of ἀναμάρτητος [sinless one]. Compare ἁμαρτωλός, Luke 7:37. Ἁμαρτάνειν, Jacobs’ ad Anthol. X, p111; and in John 5:14, in μηκέτι ἁμάρτατε, a specific sort of sinning is meant; and the same injunction given in John 8:11 to the adulteress, is the authentic commentary on this ἀναμάρτητος.” So De Wette also, and Tholuck [and Alford]. Yet Lücke (and De Wette likewise) takes in addition the moral point of view: Jesus would not trench upon the office of civil justice; He looked at the case solely in its moral aspect and with reference to the βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ (Luther: “Therefore we have preaching in the kingdom of Christ, and when this preaching comes, it supersedes swords, Judges, and all”).

The question is: In what relation did Christ place Christian morality to the theocratic civil law of Moses? And here it must be remembered that, with the Pharisees, the idea of being a sinner, and of being without sin, had reference to the law. Publicans and sinners are such as are fallen under Levitical discipline, liable to excommunication. But now the Levitical discipline was, according to the spirit of the law, so ideal that, strictly taken, it made every one necessarily unclean (see Haggai 2:12 sqq.; our Comm. on Matt. chap3). And this is most especially true with regard to sexual impurities and offences. The law, therefore, in its full ideal consistency, could not be carried out; and the mitigations of it in practice partook not only, on the one hand, of laxity, but, on the other, of moral earnestness, which must scorn to apply the law with hypocritical rigor in particular cases, when it could not apply it consistently in all. (Luther and Zwingle had scruples about the discipline of church law in similar consistency.) Christ, therefore, by His word, approves the prevalent leniency, but at the same time leads His hearers back to the principle of the ideal stringency.

His expression means, in the first place: Whosoever among you knows himself to be Levitically clean, particularly in respect of sexual defilements and unchastity, let him begin the execution of the penalty upon the woman. It presumes that no one will venture to proceed, and the conscience of the accusers must sanction this judgment. Then, secondly, in this actual impossibility of restoring the Mosaic rigorism is couched the deeper moral principle, that, in the Christian point of view, any condemnation of a guilty person by a host of accusers and judges who deem themselves guiltless, must be abandoned. For it must be considered that the legal condemnation presupposed this guiltlessness; and, at the same time that theocratic penalty of death stood for damnation (the cutting off of its soul from its people). Christ could no longer recognize either the innocence of those supposed to be clean, nor the liability of the culprit to damnation (which in fact the Mosaic system had only aimed to exhibit symbolically). The Old Testament had now unfolded itself into the New, which laid down on the one hand, the liability of all, even of human Judges, to damnation, and on the other hand, the capacity of all even of the fallen, for salvation.

This, however, in the third place, does not supersede human acquittal and condemnation; it only shows that they must proceed upon a new basis (sympathy of the sentence with the sinner) and caution against hasty and over-stringent judgment). How, far, then, this principle should allow the civil punishment of seduced or infatuated women, Christ leaves to the future, but intimates that, on the part of severity, stringency and pride, there is a motive equally ready to hold the culprit to punishment. It was itself a death-penalty, that the adulteress was socially outlawed and condemned.

It must further be considered how singularly Christ distributes His decision between Himself and the appellants or Jewish court. He states the principle, that is the vital idea of the law; but they are left to apply it according to their best knowledge and conscience: First judge themselves, then others.

Let him be the first to cast a stone at her [not the first stone; βαλέτω, not only permission, but command].—According to Deuteronomy 17:7, the witnesses were to cast the first stone. But here the first one means him who will have the courage to condemn as being himself innocent.—According to the Rabbins the first blow struck the breast, often with fatal effect.

John 8:8. And again he stooped down.—The Prophet, the Messiah, had solved His problem and returned to His rest, and represented His leisure in symbolical recreation, that they may understand that it now rests with them to Acts, that Isaiah, in the first place to condemn themselves. He is discharged of the matter. And as He has previously not looked nor glanced at the woman in her conscience of guilt, so He now does the same with them. Jerome: He would give them room to make their escape. [Inconsistent with John 8:6.]

[They went out, ἐξήρχοντο, descriptive imperfect.—One by one, εἷς καθ’ εἷς, or εἶς καθεῖς (instead of καθ’ ἕνα). A later Greek formula.—The preposition is here adverbial. Comp. Mark 14:19; Romans 12:5; Acts 21:21; the Hebrew לְאַחַד אֶחָד, and Winer, p234.—P. S.].—Being convicted by their own conscience.—Tholuck: “It is historically attested, that at that time many prominent Rabbins were living in adultery.” Wagenseil on the Sota, p525. And some of them must have feared that when He should lift up Himself again, they might hear something further, which would be still less pleasant (Musculus).

Beginning at the eldest.^[FN37]—Fritzsche and others construe so as to make ἀρξάμ. ἀπὸ τ. πρεσβυτέρ. substantially a parenthesis; the main statement being, that they went out even to the last; this being more particularly described by the parenthesis; the eldest made the beginning. Winer and Tholuck: They went out, the eldest leading off; and the ἕως τ. ἐσχ. is a breviloquent addition. The former interpretation seems clearer; and in many manuscripts this last addition is wanting. The eldest went out first, partly because of a guilty conscience, partly because they were the more shrewd. Is not πρεσβύτεροι here an official name? This is at least probable, because the group is a judicial one; hence Lücke, De Wette and others take it of rank. Meyer (and Tholuck, 7th ed.), on the contrary: This is not yielded by the contrast; there would then be no proper antithesis; it is a phrase: from the first to the last. But from the oldest to the last is no antithesis. On the contrary, a sufficiently clear antithesis is: from the elders (of the synagogue) to the last, i.e. the servants, 1 Corinthians 4:9. The expression: to the last, might, however, have been afterwards added, to destroy the definiteness of the term elders, which perhaps might have given the section a wrong and offensive bearing in the Christian congregations.

[“They went out—what else could they do? Not stop there, with the people gazing alternately at them, and at the finger moving to and fro on the ground! They retreat, but observe how orderly they do it. The Evangelist is careful to inform us that they ‘went out, one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last.’ Perhaps they hung back for a moment, no one disposed to go first, lest he should thereby seem to betray himself the greatest sinner in the lot. Song of Solomon, to avoid suspicion, they will depart in the order of age. As well-bred men, they give precedence to seniority, the younger bowing out the elder.—‘Not before you, Sirach, reverend Doctor—Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Jehudi,’ etc. They leave; the people staring after them: their long robes and broad phylacteries not quite so imposing as when they came in. They are gone. The court has adjourned. There has been an adjudication, not precisely that for which the court was called. There has been a conviction not of the accused, but of the accusers, and they, self-convicted, not daring to look the Judge in the face, who could see them through and through.”—From a sermon of Dr. Mühlenberg on the Woman and her Accusers. N. Y, 1867.—P. S.]

Left alone, and the woman.—Only the band of accusers had gotten away; the disciples and the people who were looking on could remain. But that the woman remained standing as if bound, and did not withdraw, seems to show what an impression Jesus made upon her conscience. She stood, as if bound to His judgment-seat.

John 8:10. Hath no man condemned thee?—The οὐδείς is emphatic; but so is the condemn, κατακρίνω [not found elsewhere in John]. It denotes the sententia damnatoria of theocratic judgment, a sentence of death considered at the same time as a religious reprobation. Meyer remarks that since these people came asking advice, the vote of each one is the only thing intended. But in asking advice they wished to refer to the Lord a judicial sentence, which He referred back to them, and this is therefore the thing in question. Hence it is neither, on the one hand, the actual “stoning” (Wolf) which is meant, nor on the other hand a mere moral condemnation (Tholuck), nor any dismissal of the reference (Meyer).^[FN38] The people had left the decision to Him, though in irony; and they did the same again, when He in a conditional way cast the decision back upon them. When He now says: if they have desisted from their condemnation, I also condemn thee not,—unquestionably He means this in the New Testament sense, as in John 3:17; Matthew 18:11. But in this case her acquittal is included in His decision, so far as He interprets the tacit practical verdict of her accusers. This is proved by His next words. This withholding of moral condemnation Isaiah, however, no withholding of moral judgment. Augustine (Tract. xxxiii.): Quid est Domine? faves ergo peccatis? Non plane ita. Attende, quod sequitur: ‘vade, deinceps jam noli peccare.’ Ergo et Dominus damnavit, sed peccatum, non hominem” [Ambrose: Emendavit ream, non crimen absolvit.—P. S.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. See the exegesis particularly on John 8:1-2; John 8:6-7, etc.

2. If the section of the adulteress can be restored to the credit of genuineness, it materially enriches the history of the life of Jesus. A systematic view of the progress of the persecution of Jesus by the Sanhedrin commends the theory of its genuineness according to the rules of internal criticism. It would be natural, that the temptation of Jesus which proceeded upon the ironical assumption that He was the Messiah, should form a series and climax. And the conduct of Jesus perfectly accords with the existing state of the Messianic question, on account of His official position towards the question whether He was the Messiah.

3. The conduct of Christ in this situation exhibits majestic elevation, calmness, prudence, Wisdom of Solomon, and boldness.

4. The only mention of Jesus’ writing; and that in the sand of the earth, no one knows what. His usual form of writing was a writing of the law of the Spirit in hearts with the flame of His word.

5. He that is without sin among you: (1) Acknowledgment of the Mosaic law in their view. Stone her if you please; she has deserved death according to the law of Moses. (2) Assertion of His New Testament ground. But first judge yourselves. Stone her not till one without sin be found who may begin the stoning. (3) Indication of the relation between the Old Testament and New Testament points of view. Christ declares the principle and spirit of the law of Moses. Then they may act according to their best knowledge and conscience. It must not be forgotten that the death penalty according to the letter of the Jewish law was at the same time a reprobation.

The Roman church considers Christ a second Moses, a new law-giver; and according to her He must have given a stricter law of marriage. But with a properly religious legislation a ministry of death also is connected ( 2 Corinthians 3). And of those who in this view insist on remaining under the law, the words of the apostle in Galatians 3:10 hold good.

6. On the other hand, here in the group of accusers and judges are fulfilled the words of 1 Peter 4:17 : “The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.”

7. Christ can transform the tribunal of the legalists into an asylum of criminals, into a means of repentance and of the call of grace.

8. The New Testament gentleness the source of a New Testament severity in questions of moral conduct.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The retirement of Christ to the Mount of Olives outside the city of Jerusalem, an example for the persecuted company of believers.—The first temptation of Christ by a show of recognition on the part of the rulers of the Jews.—This temptation compared with the other (subsequent) ones.—The adulteress: or, a life-like and warning scene from the joyous ecclesiastical and popular festivals of Israel.—The law of marriage a favorite question of the Pharisees.—Conjugal infidelities a measure of the spiritual decay of popular life.—The diabolical craft, which would make the show of a holy zeal for the law a snare for the Lord.—Analysis of the temptation: (1) Crafty plotting. Apparent homage was to impose upon them all. (2) Malicious assault they aim not at the execution of the woman, but at the execution of the Lord. (3) Heartless, cruel procedure. The woman, in a form of judicial process no longer practised, was to be sacrificed as a means to an end. (4) Shameless law question. They sought to make either zeal for Moses or an approval of their own tradition and custom a capital charge against the Lord. (5) Unsuspecting blindness. They know not how soon their double judgment against the woman and against the Lord is to be turned into a judgment against themselves. (6) The most headstrong obduracy. Though in their conscience convinced of their unworthiness to condemn the woman they still do not perceive their sin against the Lord.

The conduct of the Lord towards His tempters: 1. Their hypocritical homage to the Messiah He meets with the calm, stately action of Messianic majesty (He stooped down, etc.). 2. Their tempting of His Spirit He meets with the searching of their conscience3. Their Pharisaic question concerning the highest grade of punishment He meets with the question of the gospel concerning the innocent Judges 4. Their judgment was to work death and damnation; His judgment aims at deliverance and salvation5. They come as accusers and Judges, they go as condemned6. They intended to destroy a holy one; He rescues a lost sinner.—Or: 1. His silence a condemnation of their craft and excited passion2. His stooping and looking down a condemnation of their shameless treatment of the woman’s shame3. His writing, a mysterious action, pointing to the wicked mysteries of their life.—Christ and the Pharisees compared as judges of the adulteress: (1) With respect to rigor. Their rigor is an uncharitable delight in the damnation of the sinner after gross outward sins. His rigor delights in salvation, and presses on their conscience with a wholesome condemnation of the Spirit. (2) In respect to gentleness. Their gentleness is carnal laxity which encourages sin. His gentleness is overpowering grace which destroys sin.—Christ is not a new Moses, but the Redeemer from sin by the law of the Spirit.—The position which Christ takes toward civil legislators and judges: (1) He stands distinct from them, in that He makes no civil laws. (2) He stands in connection with them, in that He furnishes them the law of the Spirit, the fundamental principles for their legal administration.—The glorification of the ancient light and law in the new covenant: (1) The perfection of rigor. The perfect knowledge of sins recognizes all as worthy of death and perdition. (2) The perfection of gentleness. The full gracious perception of faith recognizes all as called to the salvation of the children of God. (3) The perfection of administration. The decided life of the Spirit fixes the standard of law and discipline between the perfect rigor and the perfect gentleness.—The judgment of Christ a word of terror for the guilty consciences on both sides: (1) The woman must tremble under the words: “Let him be the first to cast a stone at her.” (2) The accusers under the words: “He that is without sin among you” (i.e. he that is not himself worthy of death).

The guilty woman before the judgment seat of Christ: (1) How she stands bound to the judgment seat, till He has spoken. (2) How she is released with a Saviour’s word: Sin no more.—The Christian spiritual care of released criminals, particularly of penitent fallen ones.—The silence of the woman an intelligible language of penitence to the Lord.—The judgment of the Pharisees in the light and judgment of Christ.

Starke: Nova. Bibl. Tub.: The wickedness of the ungodly knows how to abuse even the law, the punishment of faults, the best and holiest things. Shame, that stupidity and silliness undertake to tempt wisdom itself. It does not become teachers and preachers to try to have one foot in the pulpit and the other in the council chamber.—Hedinger: Thou hypocrite, look into thine own bosom.—Though no magistracy can be without sin it should nevertheless not be chargeable with the sins which it must visit with bodily punishment upon others. Magistrates ought to be honest persons who fear God, Exodus 18:21.—Quesnel: Prudence and love require that we should give persons an opportunity to withdraw, without ado and disgrace, from a bad cause, into which their passsion has seduced them.—Zeisius: What a mighty, and in truth irresistible witness is the conscience of man! Thus must they themselves come to shame who seek to put others, especially faithful teachers, to shame; treachery comes home to him that forges it.—Preachers must be no doubt earnest and zealous with great sinners, but not with gross harshness, for this does not improve and edify.—Hedinger: The pulpit should not meddle in secular affairs, and much less should the secular order meddle with spiritual matters.—Canstein: If any one is rescued from the hands of justice, he should be diligently exhorted not to abuse his deliverance, but prove his gratitude to God and men.

Gerlach: The answer of Jesus puts their cunning to shame, without infringing the law, justice, or love.—At the same time His sentence guards the woman against despair by pointing at the sinfulness of all. He does not extenuate the sin of the adulteress; but He hints at inward sin which puts one further from God than gross outward transgressions.—To drive these hypocrites away needs only a word of the Lord which strikes the heart like a hammer that grinds the rock.—Now Jesus could exercise His saving office. He forgives her the sin, etc.—This implies not the slightest disapproval of legal punishments. [But it no doubt does imply a Christian principle for the criticism and reformation of civil punishments].

Braune: Early in the morning, with much watchfulness, Jesus was in the temple, the place where He loved to labor all the day. The thought of His approaching death and the various impressions of His work upon different hearts; it seems as if this doubled His zeal.—The sins which in Christendom also attach to Sundays and feast-days.—The previous evening that session against the Redeemer had been held; then (during the night) this case comes. How natural the thought, that Jesus might be caught by means of it. And now the Pharisees and scribes are in concert, etc.—She says: “Lord;” she feels the majesty of Jesus, and this implies that she certainly condemns herself, Matthew 21:31.—Deliverance from the hand of civil justice is not yet deliverance from the almighty hand of the holy God.—Jesus with His meekness showed a greater judicial earnestness than the severest condemnation to death can express.

Heubner: Unto the Mount of Olives. John gives a hint that Jesus is approaching the time of His passion.

John 8:3. “But the Scribes and Pharisees” [instead of the Eng. Vers. And], intimates the contrast: these scribes had spent the night in working out new plans against Jesus.—(The woman). To all her shame, to her fear of death which already took hold of her soul, was now added the eye of the pure and Holy One who judged without respect of persons.—It is no good fortune to remain undiscovered in transgressions.—The heavy guilt and shame of adultery are evident from all laws of antiquity against it (and also the evil of that neglect, oppression and improper use of woman, which have been gradually done away with by Christianity alone).—Men may be zealous for the divine law with evil hearts.—Worldlings and hypocrites have a passion for bringing good people into perplexity with entangling questions. But Jesus shows us the way of Christian wisdom to escape the snares of men.—Thunder from a clear sky could not have so terrified the sinners as the word of the Lord, which must have smitten them with the fear that He knew their secret sins.—Cicero Ad Verrem 3. exord.: Vis corruptorem vel adulterum accusare? Providendum diligenter, ne in tua vita vestigium libidinis appareat. Etenim non est ferendus accusator Isaiah, qui quod in altero vitium reprehendit, in eo ipso deprehenditur.—The wonderful power of conscience even in hypocrites.—No Prayer of Manasseh, Lord: It sounds like a sigh of anguish, shame and faith.—Christ’s office is not to condemn, but to show mercy and redeem.—We should never uncharitably bring the secret sins of our neighbor into the light.—Despair not of improving those who have fallen very low.—Gossner: He went early to His work; the people came early to hear Him. Early let our souls be given to Him, for He comes early into His temple, the heart.—O poor men, let the stones lie which ye would cast at your fellow-sinners and fellow-pilgrims on this earth.—Besser (after Bengel): Your names are written in the earth, Jeremiah 17:1; Jeremiah 17:13.—(From Luther): They fancy that the stones are looking at them and it seemed long to them before they could find a hole and get to the doors.—The difference between the Pharisees and the woman: They, convicted by their conscience, get away from Jesus; she, convicted by her conscience, stays by Jesus.—The two were left alone: Misery and commiseration (miseria et misericordia, pitiableness and pity), says Augustine.—What malice prompted the Pharisees to do, was made to drive a lost sheep into the arms of the good shepherd.

[Schaff: A suitable text for the Midnight Mission and at the dedication of Magdalene asylums, but to be wisely and cautiously handled. See an excellent sermon on the text by Dr. Muhlenberg, of St. Luke’s Hospital, preached and published in New York, 1867.—The startling contrast: a woman guilty of a most heinous crime and exposed to public ignominy worse than death, confronted with the Purest of the pure, who condemned even an impure look as adultery in germ.—Christ acts here not as an avenging Judges, whose duty is to administer the law, but as a merciful Saviour and Sovereign with the privilege of pardoning. So He acted towards the Samaritan woman and Mary Magdalene.—He does not make light of sins against the seventh commandment, but, in His parting word: “Sin no more,” He recognizes the enormity of the woman’s guilt and exhorts her to break off from all sin (not adultery only) at once and forever.—The wisdom of our Saviour in avoiding the snare of the Pharisees and rebuking their conscience, and His tender and holy mercy in dealing with the poor woman.—The heartless cruelty of modern society in turning the seduced adulteress over to perpetual infamy, while winking at the greater crime of the seducing adulterer.—Christ metes out the same truth and justice to great and small, respectable and disreputable alike. “He reverses the judgment of the world which casts the stone of infamy at the ruined and leaves the author of the ruin unharmed.”—Social respectability was the shield of the character of the Pharisees and Scribes, and yet their spiritual pride, hypocrisy and secret unchastities made them more guilty in the eyes of the Lord than the open shame of the poor woman at whom they were ready to cast stones. “The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you,” Matthew 21:31-32.—(From Muhlenberg): The service of the Midnight Mission is to approach fallen women in the spirit of the Saviour, “with the voice of brotherly and sisterly concern; to let them feel that they are not utterly friendless; to address them with unaffected sympathy; to whisper in the ear words of the one true Friend; to be Christ’s missionaries to them by night, like Himself seeking the lost in a benighted world: this is no dark mission, but a mission of blessed light, illumined of heaven, cheered too with the light of penitence and gratitude.”]