We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Sinful Accusers and Capital Punishment
The Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman they had caught in the act of adultery (Jn 8:3-4; where was the guilty man?). They wanted to see how this increasingly popular, would-be Messiah, might respond. Their motive, of course, was to entrap Jesus (vs. 6). The law explicitly commanded that adulterers had be stoned to death (Lev 20:20; Deut 22:22). If Jesus agreed with this and had the lady stoned, it would likely get him in trouble with Roman authorities, for they alone had the right to try and carry out capital punishment. If Jesus disagreed with this, however, it would set him in explicit opposition with the Torah and justify the Jewish court trying him as a false teacher.
Displaying his signature genius, Jesus found a way to affirm the Torah in principle while undermining it in practice. “Let anyone who is without sin cast the first stone,” he said (vs. 7). In agreement with the Torah, Jesus affirmed that sinners like this woman deserve to be executed. Yet, he added, only a sinless person would be justified in carrying out this sentence. Since none of the woman’s accusers were sinless, they ended up dropping their stones and walking away.
Since all people are sinners, it seems to me that Jesus’ teaching in this episode applies not just to this particular accused sinner and to this group of sinful accusers, but to all accused sinners and to all sinful accusers. And if you think it through consistently, this entails that none of the Old Testament’s commands to carry out capital punishment should ever be acted on! Indeed, for followers of Jesus, it entails that no command to carry out capital punishment should ever be obeyed, regardless of where it is found or who it comes from.
The command itself may be just, but unless you are without sin, you’re not justified putting it into practice.
Think about it, and have a blessed day!
gb
Greg
Related Reading
Where Psychology and Theology Meet
Guest post by Ty Gibson The biblical narrative reveals that God bears our guilt—not merely in the penal sense that Reformed theology asserts—but in the sense that He bears our misconceptions of His character as we project our sins upon Him. To the degree that fallen human beings find it psychologically impossible to bear the…
Lighten Up: Other People’s Sins
Cartoon via Adventures of the Holy Ghost Thanks for the heads up @andrewhaak!
Podcast: What Do You Mean When You Say Jesus Entered Into Solidarity with Our Sin?
Greg talks about God’s passion for, unity with, and pursuit of his beloved bride. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0330.mp3
What Went Wrong in the Garden of Eden?
When Adam and Eve ate from the tree, they imposed their will into the center of Paradise, and this was the act that destroyed Paradise. They invaded the proper domain of God. Instead of recognizing that they were supposed to derive life from the center, they placed themselves in the center. They tried to become…
Did the Fall Really Happen? (podcast)
Greg speculates on the nature of the fall, then talks about evidence of God in the universe. Episode 520 http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0520.mp3
How Judgment Makes Us Hypocrites
The previous post addressed how the church is to be people of love not judgment, which means that the church is not called to be the moral guardian of the culture. What we often fail to see is the fact that when Christians assume the position of moral guardians, they earn the charge of hypocrisy.…