We are told multiple times throughout the Bible that there are NONE righteous. But there is a lot of self-righteousness, like the self-righteous, scripture quoting Pharisees that bring the woman caught in adultery to Jesus as He is teaching in John 8. Funny, isn’t it, that the “woman caught in the very act of adultery” is the only one brought before Jesus. What happened to her partner that was also caught in the act? The Pharisees must have felt that they were so righteous and so holy that they could pick and choose who and what they should condemn – they even changed the Scripture when they quoted it to Jesus. Jesus KNEW who the other person was. Jesus is the Living Word and He KNEW the true Scripture but He did not correct or condemn the Pharisees when they confronted Him. He must have been so sad that they had no interest in learning from their Messiah, the beloved Son of God, the Way, the Truth and the Life, Grace AND Truth, our Redeemer, our Justification, our Sanctification. Instead, the Pharisees were using the Word of God to accuse and condemn so Jesus simply tells them, and ALL of us, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
One by one, starting with the elders they all walk away. They walked away, probably thinking things like “well, at least I NEVER did anything like that” or maybe “I am made in the image of God and she is not because she committed adultery and that is an abomination, why would He protect HER?” They probably had many I do this, I do that, I know the Law, thoughts. They were so focused on quoting scripture and correcting others that they missed seeing their own Messiah, Yahweh Saves, right in front of them.
They completely missed seeing His love, they missed seeing His grace, they missed out on RECEIVING from Him – His peace, His healing, His wisdom, His joy and this is true of most of us because we are ALL sinners and when we feel condemned, we usually just walk away. The woman could have run away, all of her accusers had left, but she did not. She remained. Why did she remain? Maybe she had heard the Good News about Jesus, that He was kind and compassionate and spoke with authority, how He healed people, how He forgave sins. Maybe she realized that it is not about us loving God, it is about God loving us so much that He sent His only begotten Son to save all of us. That it was not about what she did, it was about who He was and so she remained and received the great gift of no condemnation from Our Savior. Jesus knew the Pharisees would try to condemn the woman and stone her to death again so He cautioned her “to go and sin no more.”
Jesus did not condemn this woman whose life was an abomination according to Scripture because He came so that through Him we would know Yahweh as Abba, our loving Father. Jesus refers to God as Father throughout the New Testament except when He cries out
“My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” Because Jesus want to the Cross for us and He was left to take every punishment for our sins, God will never leave us nor forsake us.
Jesus bore the wrath of God so that we would know the Love of God.