John 8:1-11
The Heavenly Court
In the last chapter, John departed from his style of recording a
miracle then the sermon that went with it to recording an event and
the sermon that went with it. He continued the new style in this
chapter except that Jesus did not get to preach an entire message. He
made five statements but after each statement, He was interupted by
the scribes and Pharisees who wanted to debate or argue concerning
each statement Jesus made.
We will see Jesus’ statements and what happens later. Let’s consider
this incident from three simple points.
I. Sin - There was more than enough sin to go around.
A. The Woman’s Sin
1. Much of the story centers around this woman’s sin.
2. The woman’s sin was adultery.
3. In case you did not know, adultery is sin.
Ex 20:14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Le 20:10 And the man that committeth adultery
with another man’s wife, even he that committeth
adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer
and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
1Cor 6:9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall
not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived:
neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor
adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of
themselves with mankind,
10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the
kingdom of God.
4. Many people feel that adultery is no longer sinful. They
believe that because mankind practices it and has
accepted it as being both politically and socially
correct, it is not wrong.
5. While that may be mankind’s take on adultery, it is not
God’s.
6. However, although the woman was guilty of adultery and
adultery is wrong, the woman’s sin is not the first sin
in this account. To find the first sin we would have to
look at….
B. The Religious Leaders’ Sins
1. It is a known fact that those who claim to serve God
SHOULD abstain from sin. It is also a know fact that
many do not.
2. The woman may have had one sin on her account on that day
but the religious leaders had several.
a. Their hearts were filled with anger, hatred, MURDER.
(1) Unresolved anger perverts the mind and the soul.
(2) These men were students of the Old Testament and
the Old Testament’s specialty was actions not
attitudes.
(3) In other words, God was trying to teach man in
the Old Testament to control what he did. He
would not try to tackle teaching us to control
what we through until He supplied us with the
Holy Ghost.
(4) Even so, the Old Testament condemned the kind of
actions these men were committing.
Exodus 20:13 Thou shalt not kill.
Proverbs 19:5 A false witness shall not be
unpunished, and [he that] speaketh lies shall
not escape.
Psalm 64:5 They encourage themselves in an evil
matter: they commune of laying snares privily;
they say, Who shall see them?
(5) We know how far the hatred of these men carried
them. What we do not always understand is that
such hatred can carry us to the same place!
(a) We like to reason with ourselves and say,
"But my anger is justified."
(b) It might interest you to know that these
men thought theirs was too.
(c) In fact, they thought that by lying,
bribing, and circumventing justice and
God’s Law that they were helping God out.
(d) They considered what they did HOLY and fully
expected a reward from God for what they
did!
b. They did not care for the woman.
(1) Dealing with sin is always a tough issue.
(a) It is hard to condemn the sin without
sounding like you have condemned the
sinner.
(b) However, it is NOT hard to condemn the sin
and still LOVE the sinner.
(c) One is what it SOUNDS like. The other is
what it IS.
(2) These leaders did not care for this woman at all.
(3) Understanding the heart of God is what makes me
believe that all punishment is to be
administered with love in an effort to reclaim
the heart and soul of the transgressor.
c. They did not even care about sin.
(1) You can’t really care about sin and sin like
these people were sinning.
(2) They may have thought they cared, but they
didn’t. There was nothing about holiness, or
God, or purity that was within them.
(3) If they ever had anything of God in their hearts,
their hatred had killed it.
II. Mercy - I like to talk about mercy a lot more than I like to
talk about sin!
A. Jesus was sitting in the temple & in march a group of zealots
parading this sinner. The Bible says the wages of sin is
death and the zealots want Jesus to either agree with the
Law and have the woman killed or disagree with the Law and
be made to contradict it. Either way, it was a sure win for
the religious leaders.
B. Jesus is God. He wrote the Bible and the Law does say that
an adulteress ought to die. There is only one thing that
Jesus can do, correct?
1. NO. Jesus could show mercy.
2. Jesus could, was already and did some more, show this
woman mercy.
C. What is mercy?
1. Mercy is God temporary setting aside the penalty that sin
demands.
a. You and I have been under mercy since the day Adam and
Eve first sinned.
b. We have certainly been under mercy since the day we
were born.
2. Consider that mercy is TEMPORARY.
a. Mercy always ends. There will come a day when mercy
will run out.
b. What day is that?
(1) It is the day you die.
(2) Since Adam and Eve’s sin, every human being has
been shown some measure of mercy.
(3) However, when we die, the sin debt instantly
becomes due.
Heb 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once
to die, but after this the judgment:
(4) There is coming a day when mercy will end for
all! (I will speak about that in a moment.)
3. Consider that mercy can be strained.
a. I would say that several things can strain mercy.
(1) The more you sin, the more you strain mercy. It
would seem to me that a person who is doing
wrong would not want to draw anymore attention
to himself. Sadly, that is not the way of human
nature. The sinner, living in mercy’s shadow,
thinks he is invincible and so sins all the
more! NOT SMART. You keep pushing God and you
mercy bubble just might break.
(2) The closer to God you are, the more you strain
mercy. It is God that sin offends so it makes
sense to me that if God is nearby, the more our
sin is likely to offend.
b. If so, this woman’s mercy must have been extremely
strained.
(1) In fact, I find what is taking place here
somewhat familiar.
(2) Here, the sinner has been brought before God.
(a) She has been caught in the very act of sin.
(b) And she has been brought to the heavenly
court—so to speak.
(3) She is at the temple, the holy place where sins
are to be dealt with.
(4) And these religious leaders are there to accuse
her. To make certain that her sin is fully
known to the Almighty!
(5) It sounds like something that takes place in
heaven on a regular basis.
Rev 12:10 And I heard a loud voice saying in
heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength,
and the kingdom of our God, and the power of
his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is
cast down, which accused them before our God
day and night.
(6) What does Jesus do when Satan comes before Him to
accuse us? He shows MERCY!
4. Consider that mercy can be easily confused.
a. Some think that because God is merciful, He does not
care about sin. WRONG!
b. Even in this account, some think that Jesus ignoring
the zealots and showing the woman mercy meant that
Jesus ignored the sin. WRONG.
(1) Jesus didn’t ignore the sin. He ignored the
hateful sinners.
(2) As far as the sin, Jesus dealt with it. (I will
show you how in a moment.)
(3) But He also gave the woman an admonition about
further sin.
John 8:11 …And Jesus said unto her, Neither
do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
c. It is interesting how easy it is to confuse mercy.
(1) These religious leaders did not appreciate Jesus
showing this woman mercy. They were attempting
to use her to move the people against Jesus.
You could say that Jesus’ demonstration of mercy
ruined their plans.
(2) Yet, the very same mercy that kept Jesus from
executing judgment on the woman, was also
keeping Jesus from executing judgment on the
religious leaders!
(a) So it is with all angry people.
(b) Those who want the most for the justice of
God to fall on someone else fail to realize
how we are all standing on the same
platform of mercy!
III. Forgiveness - This is the topic I like to speak to speak about
more than them all.
John 8:11 …Neither do I condemn thee….
A. Jesus forgave this woman of her sin.
1. It might be more accurate to say that Jesus put this on
His account and forgave her when He died.
2. My own believe is that even God could not just erase a
sin.
3. God decreed that sin had to be paid for and that the
penalty is death so any sin that God ever "forgave" was
not actually forgiven until He paid the price.
4. Yet, when God purposes to do a thing since He is not bound
by time so it is as good as done!
B. What is forgiveness?
1. Forgiveness is God paying for our sin so that it is as
though the sin never occurred.
2. Forgiveness is the most wonderful of all of the gifts God
gives to us.
a. Forgiveness pays our sin penalty.
b. Forgiveness removes our sin.
c. Forgiveness restores our relationship with God.
d. Forgiveness allows God to give us His Holy Spirit.
e. Forgiveness entitles us to a mansion in heaven.
f. Forgiveness weaves us into the body of Christ and makes
us fit to be joined in marriage to the Savior.
g. Forgiveness grants us sonship with the Father.
h. Forgiveness makes us joint heirs with Christ.
i. Forgiveness undoes all that sin has done.
j. All that we are and will ever be began because of the
forgiveness that we have through Jesus Christ!
C. Some people think that mercy and forgiveness are about the
same thing.
1. They are both wonderful gifts from God and they are
related but they are also uniquely different.
2. We have forgiveness because God is merciful.
a. God held off the judgment that was due us so that He
could provide a Substitute and so that we might have
an opportunity to accept Him.
b. Even the very act of forgiveness is a mercy of God.
c. However, once we are forgiven, we don’t need mercy
any longer.
(1) Mercy is God holding back judgment.
(2) Forgiveness is God is removing sin and all its
traces.
(3) Once we have been forgiven, there is no reason
for us to need mercy.
(4) Take this woman for example - Will she ever stand
before God and be judged for her sin of
adultery? No. God removed that sin. God does
not even remember it.
(5) That does not mean we do not praise God for His
mercy. We will do that forever and even.
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