The Manuscripts of a Merciful Messiah - John 7:53-8:11

Sermon
Written By Lauren Hooker

This is one of those passages that everyone remembers and loves to talk about because in it, we have the Lord calling out hypocrisy in a beautiful way that only Jesus could do.

We often quote to our children and to one another, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone!” We quote it in order to caution harsh judgment while failing to adequately judge ourselves. We rush to punish someone while ignoring our own sins.

It’s such a beloved story, and yet, all the evidence seems to indicate that this particular passage wasn’t originally in the gospel of John. In other words, it’s unlikely that the Apostle John actually penned this story.

And it’s not just me that thinks this: there are many conservative, Bible-believing, evangelical, Christian scholars who agree with me. Men that have done wonderful work at places like Ligonier Ministries. Men like Michael Kruger and D.A. Carson these men also think that this passage isn’t original to the book of John.

Hopefully, I have your attention! And hopefully you’re not too worried about me! Because there’s no need to worry, I haven’t abandoned the authority of God’s Word. For the record, yes, I still believe that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God. It’s the only rule for faith and practice, and yet at the same time, the majority of manuscript evidence points to the fact that this passage is not original to John’s gospel.

So how does this happen? How does an inauthentic passage end up in our Bibles?

It requires a somewhat convoluted history lesson, beginning with a man named Erasmus. Erasmus was a Dutch Catholic theologian. He was probably the greatest Catholic academic of the sixteenth century. He famously debated Martin Luther, was a incredible writer, but probably his greatest achievement was the development of the Greek New Testament. For the record, the New Testament was written in Greek and the Old Testament was predominantly written in Hebrew.

And when I say “development” of the New Testament, what I really mean is compilation. He compiled the New Testament text into one cohesive unit, but in order to do that he had to gather various Greek manuscripts of various books of the New Testament. He had to have a manuscript of John, and Paul’s epistle to the Romans, Hebrews, and so on.

And he was encouraged to do this by a printer to develop a Greek New Testament so that it could be produced on a mass scale. And so, Erasmus took all the manuscripts that he had available to him, which was quite limited, and compiled a full Greek New Testament. Erasmus’s Greek New Testament is commonly referred to as the Textus Receptus. And his Greek New Testament became extremely popular. It became so popular in fact, that it was the Greek Text that formed The King James Version of the Bible. I’m sure many of you are familiar with the King James Version of the Bible. Many of you probably grew up on the King James Version of the Bible.

But nevertheless, the King James Version of the Bible gained enormous popularity and became the gold standard of the English Bible. I had to look this up, because I was curious about it, but the King James remains to this day, the most popular English version of the Bible. About 55% of all Bibles are King James.

And perhaps you can even see where this is going: Because Erasmus was working with such a limited number of manuscripts, many verses and passages that have gained popularity are now believed to be inauthentic.

Two of the most famous passages are what’s often referred to as the longer ending of Mark, which is Mark 16:9-20, and what we are looking at this morning, John 7:53-8:11.

So how do we know that 7:53-8:11 is not original to John’s Gospel? There are several reasons, but I’ll give you three.

First, many scholars believe that there are internal reasons John 7:53-8:11 is not original. In particular, there are aspects with the way the passage is written, the Greek word choice and style is different from the way John typically writes.

Secondarily, the text flows really well from verse 52 to chapter 8:12. The conversation naturally carries over because Jesus is talking in verse 52 and is speaking in verse 12.

Third, none of the earliest church fathers, that is men that led the church in the years after the apostles, men who had access to early Greek manuscripts of the book of John and wrote commentaries on it, all skipped this section. They don’t comment on the woman caught in adultery. They go straight from John 7:52 to 8:12.

But lastly, and most importantly, as I’m sure you probably noticed in your Bible are the words in large capital letters, THE EARLIEST MANUSCRIPTS DO NOT INCLUDE 7:53-8:11. In other words, the most ancient Greek manuscripts that we have of the book of John do not contain 7:53-8:11.

And so, it’s for those reasons this passage doesn’t appear to be authentic to John’s gospel.

But before you begin to doubt the reliability of God’s Word, it’s important that you understand exactly what’s going on here!

I don’t know if you picked up on what I said earlier, but Erasmus was working with only a few manuscripts when he was developing the Greek New Testament. He had a limited pool because he was simply using what was available to him.

But now, we have thousands upon thousands of ancient manuscripts of the New Testament. Many of which are much more ancient than the ones that Erasmus was working with.

And it’s important for you to understand that we believe the Bible is inerrant and infallible in the original manuscripts, what is sometimes referred to as the autograph. Meaning the actual original copies of each book of the New Testament is what we believe to be inerrant.

But you can have great confidence that what you have sitting in your lap is the Word of God. Let me read this quote to you:

“The New Testament has been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work of literature, with over 5,800 complete or fragmented Greek manuscripts catalogued, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 manuscripts in various other ancient languages including Syriac, Slavic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Coptic, Nubian, and Armenian.” What I just read is a direct quote from Wikipedia! Not exactly a source that’s particularly friendly toward Christianity.

Here’s what you need to know, there are thousands and thousands of ancient copies of the New Testament. To put this in perspective for you: there are only 260 manuscripts of the great Greek philosopher Plato. There are only about 1,000 Greek manuscripts of Homer's The Iliad.

And no one really ever seems concerned about casting doubt on the reliability of Homer or Plato’s work. Obviously, they didn’t make the claims that Jesus did, but nevertheless, no one ever seems to question it.

No other ancient book comes close to being as well preserved as the New Testament! The New Testament was preserved by Scribes who took their work extremely seriously.

But some scholars with bad intentions will say something along these lines: “there are more New Testament manuscript variations and discrepancies than there are words in the New Testament.” There are something like 400,000 differences between the manuscripts. All of that is actually true, but it’s presented in a very misleading way.

Because here’s what they don’t tell you. Most of the discrepancies and issues within the New Testament are minor scribal errors or variants. For example, we’ve all at different times copied something down by hand and accidentally wrote the same word twice. Or perhaps we copied the same line twice. Or maybe we left off an article here or there. Instead of copying “the store,” we just copy down “store.” Or it could even be as minor as a spelling error.

There is a science dedicated to analyzing the New Testament and cataloging all the variants called textual criticism.

In fact, 99% of all “variants” within the Bible don’t impact or change the meaning of the text.

Whenever you have thousands of manuscripts you’re going to have variation. The only way you avoid having any manuscript variation is if you only have one manuscript. But we can have confidence in what was originally said through comparing manuscripts one with another.

Dr. James White made this point and I thought it was a good one. You might even be tempted to think, “ah, that would be so nice if there was only one manuscript. If only we just had the original manuscripts, then we wouldn’t be faced with all these problems that I’m trying to work through right now!”

But if there’s only one manuscript then we face an even greater problem: you have to trust that whoever made that one manuscript got it right. They didn’t make any mistakes, because there’s no way to test it.

You see Christians are very transparent about the ancient manuscript process. There’s nothing to hide, after all, you have words written in capital letters in your Bible that tell you “the earliest manuscripts do not include these verses.”

Interestingly enough, Islam teaches that they only have one version of the Quran and that it has no manuscript variation. But it’s a historical fact, that Caliph Uthman burned variant versions of the Quran in order to create a unified version of it. He was deliberately trying to hide and destroy variants of the Quran. Is that more trustworthy? No, of course not!

My point is, having more manuscripts isn’t a cause for concern or question, rather it's a source of confidence - because having more manuscripts is actually better! You have something to test other manuscripts by. You can actually tell where mistakes were made and have confidence in what was the original reading. If anything, understanding the transmission of the Scriptures should give you great confidence that what you have sitting in your lap is indeed, the Word of God.

Which brings us all the way back to John 7:53-8:11. So what do we do with a passage like this? Some pastors might even tell you that it’s not appropriate to preach or reflect on passages that don’t appear to be authentic, but I disagree with that. And then on the other hand, others might say we should unwaveringly commit ourselves to the King James version and blindly accept various stories as Scripture that have little to no manuscript support or evidence. I wouldn’t agree with that either. Instead we should be open and honest about the transmission of God’s Word so that we can see how God has sovereignly protected and preserved his Word throughout time. Isn’t it remarkable that this capitalized note is in your Bible? No one wants to trick you, rather, I think it indicates that Christians are quite transparent about the history of the Bible.

Although I don’t believe John 7:53-8:11 is original to the gospel of John, it doesn’t contradict the character of Jesus. Our Lord was and still is merciful and gracious. Forgiving an adulterer certainly sounds like something Jesus would have done, after all, Jesus did much more than what’s recorded in the gospels.

In fact, many scholars believe that this particular passage was passed down through oral tradition. Meaning, this was a story about Jesus that many people were familiar with, but for whatever reason, the Apostle John under the guidance of the Holy Spirit left it out. So it doesn’t necessarily mean that this story isn’t true, it just means that I don’t believe it’s authoritative over your life.

To give an analogy, my approach to this particular story is the same to the way I’d approach something by C.S. Lewis or some other great Christian writer. C.S. Lewis said true and helpful things, but what he said isn’t Scripture or binding on the Christian’s life. So that’s how I think of this particular story. It’s helpful and consistent with the character of Jesus, but not necessarily authoritative.

And moreover, it bears no impact on the gospel message, right? Regardless of whether you keep this passage right here or take it out, we still know the gospel! We all still know how we must be saved!

And so, this story has been left here, but bracketed off with a warning label because it’s probably one of the most iconic stories in the whole Bible! It’s a famous passage. So, even if I don’t believe this passage is original to John’s gospel, I do think there is still something that we can learn from this story.

And so, let’s take a moment to reflect on this particular story.

What’s really being highlighted in this story is the mercy and compassion of Jesus. And no doubt, mercy is a major component of Christ’s character.

He doesn’t defend her actions (vv. 7:53-8:5)

We learn in verse 6, that Scribes and Pharisees specifically brought this woman to Jesus in order to test him. Notice too that we’re told, she was “caught in adultery.” The implication being that she was caught in the act. It’s an open and shut case. It’s straightforward. The Scribes and Pharisees knew exactly what they were supposed to do: the Mosaic law required them to stone her. She violated the seventh commandment, “you shall not commit adultery.”

And so, isn’t it fascinating that they go way out of their way to bring this woman before Jesus? It would seem that the Scribes and Pharisees are more interested in bringing down Jesus than rightly judging this woman’s case.

And so, not to be too cheesy, but what would Jesus do? Would he condemn her to death in compliance with the Mosaic law or spare her life in violation of the Mosaic law? Of course, we all know how it plays out.

But the first thing that I think we should notice is that Jesus doesn’t argue against their reading of the Mosaic law. In other words, he doesn’t sweep her actions under the rug or water down the standard.

He doesn’t say anything like, “this isn’t really that sinful.” Or “they’re two consenting adults.” He’s willing to uphold the Biblical standard without compromise. We really live in a day and age where it’s getting harder and harder to do this. It’s harder and harder to uncompromisingly uphold Biblical standards.

In our modern times, adultery isn’t really adultery, it’s a pathway to personal happiness. At least, that’s how it’s often rationalized. Isn’t that the advice we often hear? But God didn’t create marriage for your personal satisfaction, He gave it to you and your spouse as a sanctifying gift. I recently read in a marriage book that “marriage is more about giving than getting.” Isn’t that true?

But so many still fall for the lies of the world, believing adultery is the key to happiness. Perhaps it’s what this woman believed.

But how should you and I respond when this sort of thing inevitably happens? And it’s very difficult to look someone in the face and tell them what they believe is going to make them happy is in fact wrong and sinful.

Jesus Humanizes this Woman (vv. 6-11)

But before you rush into condemnation, it’s important to recognize that they are, just as you are, a sinner.

That’s the marvelous thing about the doctrine of total depravity. It doesn’t puff you and me up, rather, it should bring you and me low. It levels the playing field. There’s no moral superiority. Why?

Because we all sin and fall short of the glory of God! Seeing someone else’s sinfulness shouldn’t puff you and me up; rather, it should humanize the other person and help you see how terribly lost they are apart from Jesus Christ! Isn’t this precisely what Jesus does in this particular story? He humanizes her, he levels the playing field.

Because one of the most obvious things from this particular story is that the Scribes and Pharisees do not care at all about her life. They don’t care if she lives or dies. In their minds it’s irrelevant, because what they want is to find fault with Jesus Christ.

This woman’s life is literally in the hands of Jesus. He can either spare her life or sentence her to death. And of course, we know what Jesus says, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” Or as I grew up saying, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Notice Jesus doesn’t condemn or excuse her adultery. In fact, Jesus even implied that she had sinned when he said, “Let he who is without sin…”

He turns the whole situation around on her accusers, all the while looking down in the dirt, doing who knows what! And in their rush to condemn her, they condemn themselves.

And this is exactly why we love this story isn’t it? It’s a cautionary tale, a wonderful reminder that before you rush to condemn someone else, first take inventory of your own sin. Before you swing that hammer of justice down on someone else, first consider yourself.

Often in our rush to condemn someone else, we condemn ourselves because isn’t it true, we want the full measure of justice poured out on someone else, but whenever the shoe is on the other foot we want to be the exception. We want our cases and situations to be carefully nuanced.

Because the grace we always want to receive is the grace that we so rarely give. That’s really the moral of this whole story. We want grace for ourselves, but justice for others.

And Jesus reveals this with a simple word: “Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.”

There was One Without Sin!

We’ve all had, and will continue to have, opportunities to show grace. Because there will come a day when you catch someone in grievous sin. You’ll catch a friend. Husbands, you’ll catch your wife. Wives, you’ll catch your husband. Parents will catch their kids, and kids you’ll catch your parents.

This isn’t a matter of “if,” but “when.” You’ll have every right to shame them. You’ll have the right to embarrass and humiliate them. You’ll have the right to condemn them.

And at the exact same time, you’ll have the opportunity to give up your rights in order to demonstrate forgiveness and grace.

Isn’t it ironic that Jesus says, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?” Everyone sort of slinks away and leaves him with the woman.

If anyone has a legitimate right to condemn this woman it’s him! Because there is one without sin! Jesus is sinless!

He shows her grace with the simple words, “go and from now on sin no more.” It’s a beautiful picture of the merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love God that we serve!

It’s easy to see why this passage remains in our Bibles, but bracketed off. It’s moving. It’s soul stirring. It resonates deep within us. Even though it doesn’t seem this passage is technically a part of John’s gospel, it certainly reflects the character of Jesus Christ.

In particular his mercy and grace.

And it captures salvation so beautifully. God knows and sees your sin and he has every right to condemn each and every one of us. And yet, he instead pours out his immeasurable mercy and grace upon us!

What makes Christians so unique in this world is that we don’t keep a sin scorecard. We don’t track it. We don’t look through someone’s history on Twitter so we can cancel them.

What makes Christians unique in our contentious world is our willingness to forgive sin. We don’t excuse sin or defend it, but we’re willing to forgive it.

Is there someone that you need to forgive? May we indeed forgive as we have been forgiven. Let’s pray.

Lauren Hooker http://www.elleandcompanydesign.com
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