Neither do I condemn thee

The primary thrust of the first coming of the Lord Jesus to this earth was to provide undeserved blessing for men. That is why He went about doing good, healing, and proclaiming pardon for sinners, for ‘God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved’, 3. 17. But this did not mean that He closed His eyes to the wickedness of man or remained silent in the face of iniquity. On the contrary, the same Saviour who spoke so graciously to the needy solemnly indicted the Pharisees for hypocrisy. There was in the Lord Jesus the perfect marriage of grace and truth, grace which bestowed favour on the unworthy and truth which unflinchingly denounced error.

The case of the woman taken in the act of adultery was, of course, stage-managed by Israel’s religious establishment who hoped to trap the Lord in His words, 8. 6. If He condemned her to death where was His claim to be a Saviour? If He dismissed the case where was His respect for God’s law? His response was to turn the spotlight onto the double standards of the nation’s leaders, and then to grant the guilty woman (He never denied her sin) a free pardon which required a change of life. The righteous basis for that pardon was yet to be laid in His atoning death, for it was only there that God could be shown to be ‘just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus’, Rom. 3. 26. Nevertheless, in advance of Calvary the Saviour applied its benefits to one who merited the death penalty.

It is noteworthy that the Lord Jesus by no means condoned sin against the marriage bond. After all, had He not taught that ‘whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart’, Matt. 5. 28? Far from relaxing the law He actually intensified it, so that it assessed thoughts as well as outward actions. But He who spelled out the real demands of the law also pronounced forgiveness, speaking as the ultimate authority, ‘Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more’. Saved sinners today are expected to live in a manner worthy of God’s grace, for we have been delivered from our sins that we might no longer continue in them.