Published as Open Book Column in Sight Magazine, 7 November 2025
Read John 8:1-11 (NIV)
Why would teachers of the law dare to test the writer of the law?
The spectacular story of Jesus sparing the adulterous woman reveals what happens when cold stones meet a sacred heart.
We don’t need to be lawyers to grasp the genius of the ultimate judge. We need to apply ‘spot the difference’ to see what the trappers maliciously omitted when applying the ‘letter of the law’.
As a comparison with our court trials, let’s use ‘prosecutors’ when referring to the “teachers of the law and the Pharisees”.
They framed a lose-lose situation: if Jesus sanctions the execution, they incriminate him for violating Roman law and report Him to the authorities, as Jews “have no right to execute anyone” (John 18:31). If Jesus forbids the stoning, He is a heretic for violating Mosaic Law.
The temple courts were an apt public setting for this exhibition.
Exhibit A: the woman who was “caught in the act of adultery”. But “caught” means there were witnesses.
The prosecutors would be acutely aware of the letter of the law.
Exhibit B: “One witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime…A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses” (Deuteronomy 19:15). Yet Jesus does not demand that the witnesses step forward.
Next, the prosectors cite the Law of Moses that “commanded us to stone such women”. But this omits the other half of the command…
Exhibit C: ‘Both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death’ (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22). Yet Jesus does not demand that the conspicuously missing man steps forward.
Mosaic law is very prescriptive about who must cast the first stone…
Exhibit D: “The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting that person to death” (Deuteronomy 17:6-7). The trap is now disintegrating – how will the execution ‘legally’ commence without witnesses?
But the law is a double-edged sword, which is a problem for pedantic prosecutors.
Exhibit E: “If the witness proves to be a liar…then do to the false witness as that witness intended to do to the other party” (Deuteronomy 19:18-19). So the witnesses should step forward and cast the first stone. Unless there were ‘false witnesses’ who risked exposure and stoning.
Despite all these opportunities for Jesus to highlight the prosecution’s omissions and anomalies in their malicious manipulation of Mosaic law, he remained silent. Instead, He “bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger”.
Perhaps the spectacle of Jesus writing with His finger would have evoked the origin of Mosaic Law…
Exhibit F: “When the Lord finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the covenant law, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God” (Exodus 31:18).
Perhaps this is why Jesus wrote in silence: the same finger that inscribed the Ten Commandments may have now inscribed all the laws (exhibits) that the prosecutors were violating.
Against this rich tapestry of Biblical text and ‘exhibits’, Jesus utters His only ‘defence’ to the prosecutors: “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her”.
Without sin? Without witnesses? Without the adulterer?
Surely, the older Pharisees knew their Hebrew Bible: “There is no-one on Earth who…never sins” (Ecclesiastes 7:20).
Jesus did not wait for the first stone, but “again He stooped down and wrote on the ground”.
St Jerome suggested that Jesus wrote the names and sins of the accusers, to fulfil a prophecy…
Exhibit G: “All who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust” (Jeremiah 17:13). Surely, the learned prosecutors would be familiar with this Biblical imagery.
Whether Jesus inscribed Mosaic Law of their sins, the finger-pointing was now backfiring and shaming them.
Those who “kept on questioning him” suddenly fell silent, their stones fell to the ground, and their trap fell to pieces.
When “only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there”, He alone qualified as “without sin”, but He refused to condemn her.
Perhaps all our sins are temporarily inscribed in dust but can be blown away by the breath of God when He sees our repentant heart.
The mother of Jesus is also believed to be “without sin” and born through Immaculate Conception. When Mary was betrothed to Joseph, she became pregnant “before they came together” (Matthew 1:18). This could have been perceived as adultery with fatal consequences. Like Jesus, Joseph was “faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace” (Matthew 1:19).
Like his foster father, Jesus spared the woman from death.
Instead of executing the woman, Jesus executed the letter of the law.