We see the start of the Pharisees getting more frustrated with the
ministry of Christ and the following that He is attracting throughout the
Gospel of John. In chapter seven we see
that while at the festival they are still mad about Christ healing a man on the
Sabbath, this continues in verses 40 through 52. We see that they sent the guards out to
arrest Him, but they could not for they said “we have never heard anyone speak
this way.” The Pharisees insult them by
saying have you been fooled as well?
Then go on to proclaim that He is not a prophet or the Messiah, for no
prophet has ever come out of Galilee, therefore it cannot be. The truth is though that several prophets
came out Galilee. It amazes me how blind
people can become when they do not want to follow Christ, they begin to make up
excuses that may or may not make sense.
When we encounter people today whom we want to see come to church and we
invite them we get all kinds of excuses do we not? The same goes for those who
know that we believe in Christ being the Son God, they want to trap us with
questions or excuse of not being good Christians. But we
have to be ready to answer their excuses.
As we see what happens next, we see how Christ was prepared to answer
those who did not want to believe in Him.
The Pharisees had hoped to trap Christ in bringing a
women who had been caught in the act of adultery, they had thought they had
Him. For if he had said go ahead and
stone her he would have been telling them to go ahead and break Roman law, had
He said not to He would have contradicted Jewish law. Now one problem with their plan was the fact
they only had the women and not the man.
For in Deuteronomy 22:22-24, ““Suppose a man meets a young woman, a virgin who is engaged
to be married, and he has sexual intercourse with her. If this happens within a
town, you must take both of
them to the gates of the town and stone them to death.” Notice they only came with the women, if they
truly cared about the law they would have brought both parties. Christ could have pointed this out them but
instead He went another route. Instead
He challenged them if you are with sin go ahead and throw that first
stone. Knowing that not a one of them
was sinless, He instead trapped them, He was the one who made them look
foolish.
How did
this trap backfire, for one the Pharisees did not know their scripture well
enough, which was the first mistake, second they were not prepared for an
answer that would trap them. You see
what Christ did was make them realize that they themselves where sinners. But He did not by coming out in a harsh and
mean tone, He did not say to them that they should go back home and do their
homework on the laws. He made a simple
yet powerful statement, they got the message and went home. We do not see that this had any effect on
them at all no in fact it made them madder.
But let us stop and look at the women, she is the one that was affected
the most. It was her life that was saved
that day, then Christ told her that He too forgave her. But it didn’t end there he added on these
words at the end, “Go and sin no more.”(John 8:11) The same words we hear Christ tell many of
those that He healed. Go and sin no
more, do you want to know how to make a
difference in the lives of those around, first accept the forgiveness given to
us by God the Father, our sins have been paid for in full through the blood of
Christ on the cross. Then take these
words and let them be burned into your heart “go and sin no more.” Realizing that if you study your bible along
with prayer, and live a life that no longer involves sin, people are going to
notice. God will give us the strength
we need to follow and obey Ephesians 1:3-14.
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