John 8

Commentary on John 8 in Sequential Order:

Verses 1-11

One conclusion the casual reader could draw from the story of the adulterous woman is that by letting the woman go, Jesus is abrogating the Law of Moses that condemns her to death for the sin of adultery. But it's important to note the context of her condemnation. God's Torah, as given to Moses, was for Israel to understand what is holy and what is not holy, what is of God and what is not, and in that very black and white context, adulterers were condemned to be stoned. And yet here, what we see is not the Pharisees upholding God's Law in holiness. There is no presence of "two or three witnesses" or judicial authority, just a mob with a lot of stones and a clear intent to test Jesus. So it's decidedly not a case of Jesus overturning the faithful execution of the Torah: it's a case of a bunch of mobsters challenging Jesus and awaiting His response.

Moreover, Jesus's response, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first," is a very specific reproach. The general interpretation could align with the true message that we shouldn't be judgmental of other people's sins in light of our own sinful natures, which is consistent with planks and specks in people's eyes from Matthew 7. But context again plays a role here: Jesus has called this culture an "evil and adulterous generation." (Matthew 12:39) I think the better reading of this story is that Jesus knew the hearts of the Pharisees and knew that they were largely a group of adulterers, and that He was dealing with a case of blatant hypocrisy: the secret adulterers gunning after the adulteress who was caught "in the very act."

Verses 12-20

Jesus addresses His authority in the context of the Law that God gave to Israel. Where the Law states that legitimate judicial authority is established "by the mouth of two or three," (Deut 17:6, 19:15) Jesus notes that His judgment is established by the dual witness of Himself and the Father. In this way, He puts Himself both in line with and above the Law.

It's interesting how the idea of two people's witness legitimizing a claim has manifested itself. In Albert Camus's The Fall, there is an excerpt that explores the idea that truth is founded in the witness of two people seeing a unicorn. If one person sees a unicorn, he won't believe it because it's crazy to have seen a unicorn and nobody else saw it. If two people see it, then it's true that the unicorn was there. If three or more people claim to have seen the uniform, then the idea of groupthink comes into play, where some might have influenced or persuaded others to think that they might've seen a unicorn.

Verses 21-59

In verses 21-24, Jesus notes that He is from above and that people are from beneath, putting it almost in geographic terms. He says that anyone who "does not believe will die in their sins," and it's almost implied that they remain in their sins down beneath. The up and down metaphor is very reminiscent of the illustrations that you'd find on tracts, with God up above and humanity down below with an uncrossable chasm in between, for which Jesus provides a bridge or ladder.

One apparent paradox is that in verse 30-31, the passage states that Jesus is speaking to the "many" who both "believed in Him" and "believed Him," which would indicate that He is speaking to seekers, believers, and followers. Yet as Jesus continues to speak, He calls them slaves of sin and children of the devil, and they in turn accuse Him of being a demon-possessed Samaritan, and then when Jesus pulls the big reveal and tells them, "Before Abraham was, I AM," they furiously try to stone Him. It's puzzling to discern who the audience really is in this passage.

It's also a very dramatic scene to visualize unfolding. The exchange begins when the Jews ask Jesus, "Who are you?" Jesus tells them, "Just as I have been saying to you from the beginning." And then the discussion heats as Jesus talks of His Father and Their relationship. Jesus calls Himself the offspring of God and calls them the offspring of the devil, the spawn of lies. The temperature in an already-scorching Israeli afternoon ratchets up several notches. And then they again demand, "Who are you?" and Jesus replies, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad," and the Jews again ask, "Who are you?" and Jesus declares in a thunderously outrageous statement, "Before Abraham was, I AM." That Name of God that was too sacred to even say, to the extent that Jews knew God as HaShem, "The Name," and only dared to spell out the four letters YHVH as an abbreviation on sacred scrolls. For Jesus to say that Name out loud in reference to Himself -- the impact doesn't come across in the New King James Version, where all the translator had to do was hit Caps Lock. I don't think we can fully understand; our culture doesn't hold anything with that sort of reverence these days.

And then Jesus disappears and walks through the crowd, which would be a really neat party trick and probably exactly what I would've done if they were about to throw rocks at me.