Analyzing John 8: The Woman Taken in Adultery

Gary North

Feb. 18, 2012

This was posted on a forum. The issue: John 8, the account of the woman taken in adultery. It does not appear in several ancient texts, but I think it is Scriptural.

The member asks the following.

1. azurebandit inquired into the meaning behind the adultress walking away with her life, being found in adultery in a time when Messiah had not died yet and all seem to agree (correctly or otherwise) that the penalty was death.

"All" does not include anyone who is familiar with the Mosaic law. The fundamental principle of the Mosaic civil law was this: victim's rights. I have written a book on this: http://bit.ly/gnvictim.

The victimized spouse had the authority to require both participants to be executed. But the spouse could not discriminate. If he/she demanded that the seducer be executed, this had to apply to the offending spouse. The spouse could decide not to prosecute. The only person lawfully allowed to bring formal charges was the offending spouse.

The witnesses departed. The Mosaic law required two witnesses in any capital crime (Deut. 19:15). So, there was no way to convict her. She had to be set free. Jesus sent her away, after asking specifically where her accusers were (v. 10). They were gone, she replied. So He dismissed her (v. 11).

This is obvious to anyone who knows the Mosaic law. Few Christians do. They cannot understand much of the New Testament because of their appalling and inexcusable ignorance about the Mosaic law.

2.While the accusers may have been deliberately omitting the male involvement in the equation, I ask a related question: "if it is correct, as taught in many in many Christian circles that the teaching is 'the Law held sway [and therefore adultery was punished with death] until Messiah came', why did she walk away with her life?" as azurebandit points out, she was told "go and sin no more", so she was clearly not accused in vain.

(1) Because the only party who had legal standing to bring charges against the woman was either her husband (if she was married) or the wife of the man, who was conveniently missing. (2) Because there were no witnesses willing to testify against her. Simple.

3.Answers thus far include: the ceremonial requirements and the Levitival order are no longer extant due to fulfillment and lack of place for sacrifice; Messiah didn't do away with God's standard for living.

All are judicially irrelevant. Anyone who would offer any of them is judicially ignorant of the Mosaic law.

4. I don't find the sum total of the above taught in Christian circles. E.g., feast of Tabernacles, if we know this memorial or appointed time cannot be observed for the purpose of earning the free gift of salvation, and the point of this feast is that Emmanuel will dwell among His people on the new earth (i.e. it's not been fulfilled yet), and observing it today would not be inconsistent with the above statement on requirements and Levitical order, why isn't it taught?

Whatever this paragraph means, I am incapable of deciphering it. It surely has nothing to do with the text in John 8.

5. I was directed to read a chapter where the idea that Messiah's annulling of Moses' instruction on divorce is an example of why His appointed times (Passover, Tabernacles, Sabbath, Atonement, Trumpets, Unleavened Bread, Pentecost) are no longer to be found in Christian circles was postulated. My understanding thus far appears to have been correct, as I asked this very question (see post from 2/14) and it was answered in the affirmative. It's possible my qustion was unclear.

Whoever directed him to read this did not know Jack Diddly Squat about the Mosaic law.

6. However, assuming it was clear, this idea does not make sense, as Messiah, dealing with the religious authorities of the day, was setting the record straight on divorce (what we would call a "non-starter") as "from the beginning this was not so". Here you have an example in the Pentateuch of an instruction that was never meant to be. Today, something that wasn't meant to be is found among the people of God. Contrast that with, say, another appointed time, the Passover, which the celebrates the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Passover, as the Feast of Tabernacles, and the other appointed times of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are not found today in most Christian circles. Regarding the appointed times, which were meant to be from the beginning, they don't seem to be found now among the people of God, and they will make a comeback in the time of the new heavens and the new earth. (See Zechariah 14:16; Isaiah 66:22-23; Matt 26:19-29 )

I have spent 39 years refuting this assertion with respect to the biblical laws of economics. My father-in-law, R. J. Rushdoony, did the same in three volumes of The Institutes of Biblical Law. He covered the whole of biblical law. My associate, Greg L. Bahnsen, provided a comprehensive case in Theonomy in Christian Ethics.